"Usumbara" classification?

LPacker79

ArachnoSpaz
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Someone just posted this on the Tarantula forum at kingsnake.com. Is this true?

By the way, usambara has just been classified. It happened about 2 - 3 weeks ago, proposed by the British Tarantula Society and has been accepted by the main American and European organisations. It is now officially P. mamilatus.
 

sunnymarcie

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found this on a web page:

There are a few more species in the Pterinochilus genus that have similar colors as murinus, such as P. mammilatus (more reddish in color). These species are beeing imported from Africa now and are sometimes sold as "red color form murinus". Time will tell if they are infact just another color variation. Update: P.mammilatus is a synomym with P.murinus since 2002.

from this page, near the bottom

http://hem.spray.se/minax/artiklar/murinus/murinus_e.html
this is an ATS page by the way.
 
Last edited:

belewfripp

Arachnobaron
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That statement may be the result of confused information regarding Richard Gallon's revision of Pterinochilus last year. According to Gallon's conclusions, Usambara tarantulas are a color-morph of Pterinochilus murinus, as is Pterinochilus mammilatus. Pterinochlius mammilatus is no longer considered a valid species name. Also, organizations do not propose name changes, individual taxonomers do. It may be that Gallon's revision was published in the BTS magazine and so gave the poster the idea that the BTS had proposed the name changes.

Adrian
 

Lopez

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Damn, I met Richard Gallon yesterday, should really have asked him about this.
I'll try emailing him to get his response.
 

phoenixxavierre

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Originally posted by LPacker79
Someone just posted this on the Tarantula forum at kingsnake.com. Is this true?
Here is an excerpt from Gallon's revision of Pterinochilus and Eucratoscelus:

"Schmidt et al. (2000) redescribed P. mamillatus from red-coloured specimens from the Usambara region of Tanzania. They did not satisfactorily distinguish P. mamillatus from other members of the genus, simply stating that the red coloration is species-specific. The spermathecae were described as inwardly curving and almost touching. The emboli of their specimens were filiform and inflected midway and the apical megaspine was also inflected from the tibial apophysis. These features are all consistent with P. murinus. Teh base colour of P. murinus is variable, ranging from bright orange through beige to dark grey. All colour forms are morphologically identical and hence subjective splitting, based solely on coloration, is considered artificial."

Hope this helps answer your question.

Take care,

Paul
 

LPacker79

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Thanks everyone! I had posted that on the aol tarantula board where Robert Breene is the moderator. He basically echoed everything you guys said.
More specifically:

"That's plain silly and is not the way it's done. What the BTS proposes means nothing.
It's a bout Richard Gallon's scientific recent revision on Pterinochilus and Ceratogyrus. The "Usambara" varieties were found to be P. murinus, maybe one was found to be P. mamilatus, don't have the article handy. When people talk like that, you know they are clueless about taxonomy, so just chuckle and ignore them.
I'm sure they had good intentions though."
 
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