- Joined
- Jul 20, 2007
- Messages
- 5,357
Zoltan: Can highland and lowland produce offspring together? What exactly are the differences between the two? Significant enough to refer to each separately, right?The "arachnological" part of his post is quite correct and is in line with the current consensus.
What matters is that P. bara was synonymised with P. subfusca in 1996. Until someone comes along and restores P. bara as a distinct species, P. subfusca is the valid name. People are entitled to their opinion, and can claim they are two different species, but unless they have examined the type specimens and can provide us with a diagnosis of the supposed two species, their opinion holds zero scientific value.
Taxonomy in itself is 'playing God', wouldn't you say?P.bara is another namfor the lowland form in my eyes they are the same species people just like to play god of spiders and say they are separate <snip>
I mean...dogs, as an example, are all the same species. Yet a Great Dane looks completely different from a Poodle.I live in the northern u.s. here the deer can reach well over 6 foot, have several antler points, and long tall legs. Just twelve hours south, the deer are much short, have smaller antlers, and shorter legs. The coloring is even slightly different. These variations are all due to very different terrain. One low and flat. The other high and rocky. The deer have adapted genetically to there terrain. But they are STILL DEER, not subspecies. Small variations just are not enough in my opinion to create a different species.
So what defines something like...Haplopelma albostriatum from Haplopelma minax? They certainly look close enough to be the same species, and even if they're not, the physical differences are minimal.
Taxonomists, scientists, etc. don't all go by the same standards for defining/describing species. So yeah, this is why I said the 'deer' argument was completely invalid, and also why I commented on why I felt it was a good thing that Mr. Run-On wasn't an arachnologist.
Punctuation and grammar get you a long way...
So maybe highland and lowland are the same species, maybe they're not. Would I attempt to breed one to the other? Nope. Would care for both of them be the same? Generally speaking, yep.