RezonantVoid
Hollow Knight
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2018
- Messages
- 1,354
I searched around and couldnt find this topic discussed in detail.
Alot of us hobbyists down under (I'm no exception) have for a long time been drooling over the stuff available outside our borders. For the longest time i would have straight away answered with a resounding YES to the question in the title. But recently ive been giving this topic a bit of thought and genuinely surprised myself with my answer.
The allure for exotics stems from, at least for me, the beautiful array of colours found in non native genus, compared to our generally brown and grey natives. Over time, i have come to possess a far greater appreciation for this seemingly boring attribute, as it forces me to look at characteristics other than simply colour alone. This species has adorably fluffy legs, this one goes jet black with red setae after a molt, that one has bizarrely thick legs, etc. I now view our native species as an incomparable blessing! Not to mention experiences of so many undescribed species here just waiting for a classification. Theres probably tripple the amount of currently known species, if not far more, waiting to be found here by a determined hobbyist or scientist, which may never get the appreciation they deserve if they are outshined by a shiny pink Versicolor or the impressive size of a pokie.
And this brings me to the next point. There are countless examples i could use, but im just going to stick with one. The Manigrida Diving Tarantula was first found way back in 2004. The wild colony is believed to be the largest concentration of tarantulas in the world, and on top of that they spend what's presumed to be several MONTHS under flood waters when the Manigrida plains are submerged in the wet season. This is a massive and as far as i know unprecedented discovery among arachnids, one warranting serious scientific study.
This thing still doesnt have a scientific name. Let me mention a few others that alot of aussies have probably heard the names of thrown arround. The Rattlesnake tarantula, Ghost tarantula and blue/swamp tarantula. None of them have seemingly had any progress made towards giving them official classifications. This extends to nearly all our spider groups and especially non tarantula mygalomorphs.
So are we really in a position to start bringing in exotics in the near future, if we cant even work out what we have here or stop destroying populations of species we havn't even classified? My personal answer is, no. I would still love to own many exotic species, but i think i can hang tight and appreciate our own ones until we can fix the situation here a bit.
Id love to hear what other people's thoughts are on this, especially Aussies. Theres many other aspects of this (should it actually happen of course) that would make for interesting discussions such as economic or environmental factors. Thank you for reading
Alot of us hobbyists down under (I'm no exception) have for a long time been drooling over the stuff available outside our borders. For the longest time i would have straight away answered with a resounding YES to the question in the title. But recently ive been giving this topic a bit of thought and genuinely surprised myself with my answer.
The allure for exotics stems from, at least for me, the beautiful array of colours found in non native genus, compared to our generally brown and grey natives. Over time, i have come to possess a far greater appreciation for this seemingly boring attribute, as it forces me to look at characteristics other than simply colour alone. This species has adorably fluffy legs, this one goes jet black with red setae after a molt, that one has bizarrely thick legs, etc. I now view our native species as an incomparable blessing! Not to mention experiences of so many undescribed species here just waiting for a classification. Theres probably tripple the amount of currently known species, if not far more, waiting to be found here by a determined hobbyist or scientist, which may never get the appreciation they deserve if they are outshined by a shiny pink Versicolor or the impressive size of a pokie.
And this brings me to the next point. There are countless examples i could use, but im just going to stick with one. The Manigrida Diving Tarantula was first found way back in 2004. The wild colony is believed to be the largest concentration of tarantulas in the world, and on top of that they spend what's presumed to be several MONTHS under flood waters when the Manigrida plains are submerged in the wet season. This is a massive and as far as i know unprecedented discovery among arachnids, one warranting serious scientific study.
This thing still doesnt have a scientific name. Let me mention a few others that alot of aussies have probably heard the names of thrown arround. The Rattlesnake tarantula, Ghost tarantula and blue/swamp tarantula. None of them have seemingly had any progress made towards giving them official classifications. This extends to nearly all our spider groups and especially non tarantula mygalomorphs.
So are we really in a position to start bringing in exotics in the near future, if we cant even work out what we have here or stop destroying populations of species we havn't even classified? My personal answer is, no. I would still love to own many exotic species, but i think i can hang tight and appreciate our own ones until we can fix the situation here a bit.
Id love to hear what other people's thoughts are on this, especially Aussies. Theres many other aspects of this (should it actually happen of course) that would make for interesting discussions such as economic or environmental factors. Thank you for reading