T Blondi locality

[A guy]

Update. I guess my dealer actually has a very good track of their imports. My female is from a breeder that had collected specimens directly from French Guiana for a breeding program. So not only do I have an exact locality on her, she is also a pure blood French Guiana T blondi

 

[esa space station]

on a personal note id like to say this carry's a lot of validity and would certainly explain perhaps why there are so many successful European breeders due to knowing their stock/origin

 

[A guy]

on a personal note id like to say this carry's a lot of validity and would certainly explain perhaps why there are so many successful European breeders due to knowing their stock/origin

Ever since knowing about it I've only been getting breeding stock that I can trace the origins of. Most of what I have is traced back from few different breeding programs of breeders that have originally collected specimens from French Guiana.

 

[viper69]

Yes and some say that the French guiana locality are the "true" blondi.

Whenever I read this specimen is considered the "true" X, I always laugh. Like what does that even mean?? If there are localities differences, but they are the same species, then one is no more TRUE than the next.

 

[esa space station]

Ever since knowing about it I've only been getting breeding stock that I can trace the origins of. Most of what I have is traced back from few different breeding programs of breeders that have originally collected specimens from French Guiana.

I would be familiar with an article yes of some t blondi collected 2006 it was near a known space station /research area in French guyana/they ended up being non coastal variants as they were found primarily inland I know of a breeder who still carry's that stock it would be even koeppler most of t blondi is throughout Germany there are a few who are having frequent success.

Whenever I read this specimen is considered the "true" X, I always laugh. Like what does that even mean?? If there are localities differences, but they are the same species, then one is no more TRUE than the next.

horizon survival Anglia using table top photography embarked on an expedition in 1993 and if you examine film footage you can clearly see in 1993 t stirmi unknown to science back then

 

[A guy]

Whenever I read this specimen is considered the "true" X, I always laugh. Like what does that even mean?? If there are localities differences, but they are the same species, then one is no more TRUE than the next.

Not sure but I think what they mean is the "true" specimens were the type specimens that were used to describe the species

 

[viper69]

horizon survival Anglia using table top photography embarked on an expedition in 1993 and if you examine film footage you can clearly see in 1993 t stirmi unknown to science back then

what’s your point?

Not sure but I think what they mean is the "true" specimens were the type specimens that were used to describe the species

that’s always been my thought too

 

[AphonopelmaTX]

Not sure but I think what they mean is the "true" specimens were the type specimens that were used to describe the species

When you see a species on a price list as being a true species, it means that they have been correctly identified as that species and implies that any other occurrence of the species being sold with the same scientific name has been incorrectly identified. It really has nothing to do with anyone comparing their pet trade material to a holotype or any other specimen in a type series, but comparing to a specimen in a type series could be a means to correctly identify a species if a good written description does not exist. That is, assuming the specimens in a type series has been correctly identified.

When it comes to Theraphosa blondi though, there is no well written description and thus it wouldn't be possible to determine if anything labeled as such in the pet trade has been correctly identified. I doubt anyone has actually seen the holotype of T. blondi or if it actually exists. When Theraphosa blondi resurfaced in the pet trade, I bought a couple back in 2015 then went through every paper available on the World Spider Catalog (except for anything written by Gunter Schmidt, H.J. Peters, or "hobby" publications) for a definition of T. blondi to use to compare with the ones I bought. To my surprise, every author had a different definition of T. blondi and used different museum specimens to describe them! The country of origin for the T. blondi taxonomists used in their works came from Venezuela, Brazil, French Guiana, and Guyana.

So I too laugh when I read that someone has a "true" Theraphosa blondi, because there is no way to know! Don't tell me it is "true" because it was collected from French Guiana because judging by the scientific literature, no one knows how widespread T. blondi is in the northeastern region of South America.

 

[A guy]

When you see a species on a price list as being a true species, it means that they have been correctly identified as that species and implies that any other occurrence of the species being sold with the same scientific name has been incorrectly identified. It really has nothing to do with anyone comparing their pet trade material to a holotype or any other specimen in a type series, but comparing to a specimen in a type series could be a means to correctly identify a species if a good written description does not exist. That is, assuming the specimens in a type series has been correctly identified.

When it comes to Theraphosa blondi though, there is no well written description and thus it wouldn't be possible to determine if anything labeled as such in the pet trade has been correctly identified. I doubt anyone has actually seen the holotype of T. blondi or if it actually exists. When Theraphosa blondi resurfaced in the pet trade, I bought a couple back in 2015 then went through every paper available on the World Spider Catalog (except for anything written by Gunter Schmidt, H.J. Peters, or "hobby" publications) for a definition of T. blondi to use to compare with the ones I bought. To my surprise, every author had a different definition of T. blondi and used different museum specimens to describe them! The country of origin for the T. blondi taxonomists used in their works came from Venezuela, Brazil, French Guiana, and Guyana.

So I too laugh when I read that someone has a "true" Theraphosa blondi, because there is no way to know! Don't tell me it is "true" because it was collected from French Guiana because judging by the scientific literature, no one knows how widespread T. blondi is in the northeastern region of South America.

Yeah, I'm fully aware that there's really no telling what a "true" T. blondi is. I'm just here cause like I've said, I'm looking to breed them and maybe getting some specimens that are from the same location of origin could be a key to having success with them.

 

[Wolfram1]

Hey Marco,
Much like yourself i imagine, i would always prefer to own a specimen with a known locality over one that is just classified "T. blondi", so in that sense i like how persistent you are in trying to track down their origins.

However as @AphonopelmaTX said it is often not even possible to id a spider properly. I always try myself on the literature but to be honest many details can be hard to grasp without a good microscope and in other cases the descriptions seem too vague to properly differenciate some closely related spiders from each other.

I really hope you can backtrace its history to the importer and collector, however this is unlikely.

In case you do not manage to get a collection site, don't you think reassigning a locality without personal information on the spider in question creates more problems than it solves.

What if you do decide it is darker and thus a "Surinam" locale, but it really wasn't and you lable it incorrectly.... that would make it even harder to untangle in the future.


This is the reason every Xenestis sp. was treated like a seperate species from the start despite some of the visually distinct ones beeing fairly close to localities of described ones. And there obviously are quite a few different species in there but the main reason was to avoid mixing localities. This is just an example, but if anithing was labled X. immanis "random", how long do you think it would take until they would surely get mixed with other X. immanis bloodlines/imports.

So as annoying all these undescribed sp. are, at least they may help preserve localities. And i'd say anything that has been dipped into the pool of obscurity once, should remain that way.

just my 2cents, cheers

 

[A guy]

Hey Marco,
Much like yourself i imagine, i would always prefer to own a specimen with a known locality over one that is just classified "T. blondi", so in that sense i like how persistent you are in trying to track down their origins.

However as @AphonopelmaTX said it is often not even possible to id a spider properly. I always try myself on the literature but to be honest many details can be hard to grasp without a good microscope and in other cases the descriptions seem too vague to properly differenciate some closely related spiders from each other.

I really hope you can backtrace its history to the importer and collector, however this is unlikely.

In case you do not manage to get a collection site, don't you think reassigning a locality without personal information on the spider in question creates more problems than it solves.

What if you do decide it is darker and thus a "Surinam" locale, but it really wasn't and you lable it incorrectly.... that would make it even harder to untangle in the future.


This is the reason every Xenestis sp. was treated like a seperate species from the start despite some of the visually distinct ones beeing fairly close to localities of described ones. And there obviously are quite a few different species in there but the main reason was to avoid mixing localities. This is just an example, but if anithing was labled X. immanis "random", how long do you think it would take until they would surely get mixed with other X. immanis bloodlines/imports.

So as annoying all these undescribed sp. are, at least they may help preserve localities. And i'd say anything that has been dipped into the pool of obscurity once, should remain that way.

just my 2cents, cheers

Don't worry, I since then realized that the physical appearance of a specimen won't be enough to have a proper identification on it.

I did however contacted my dealer about it, months ago. He informed me that the specific import where my T. blondi specimen came in were from breeders who collected specimens from French Guiana for a breeding program. So I kinda got an origin on my T. blondi.