Hybrids.

[Rs50matt]

Recently on a fb group I got into a conversation with someone regarding hybrids in the hobby. Specifically Albopilosus. My understanding of the word species is that something cannot produce offspring outside of its own (naturally). So in my understanding a hybrid has to be produced from 2 separate localities within the same species. This goes against the general idea that the Albopilosus hybrid is a cross between it and a Vagans.

Im curious to know if anyone has any proof of any of this? Without sounding rude I’m not interested in opinions. They aren’t helpful, but if someone knows links to papers or has photographic evidence (not pulled off google) it would be appreciated.

 

[Stan Schultz]

Recently on a fb group I got into a conversation with someone regarding hybrids in the hobby. Specifically Albopilosus. My understanding of the word species is that something cannot produce offspring outside of its own (naturally). So in my understanding a hybrid has to be produced from 2 separate localities within the same species. This goes against the general idea that the Albopilosus hybrid is a cross between it and a Vagans.

Sorry. No cigar. "Hybrids," as misunderstood by the lay-person, between two species occur all the time in nature, and by the hand of man. Examples are the common mule, red factor canaries, ligers and tigons, and even suspected between Homo sapiens (modern man) and Homo neanderthalensis or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis (Neanderthal man)!

Im curious to know if anyone has any proof of any of this? Without sounding rude I’m not interested in opinions. They aren’t helpful, but if someone knows links to papers or has photographic evidence (not pulled off google) it would be appreciated.

Rs50matt -
Congratulations, my friend! You've just reopened a huge can of particularly ugly worms that we had all hoped was sealed forever!

There are all kinds of problems with the terms themselves, the concepts, and the underlying philosophies behind what you're trying to sort out. And everybody has their own (usually inaccurate, if not outright wrong) definition. As a result, we find ourselves back in the days of Babel. Here are a few items to gnaw on as this thread unravels:

There is no single, all-inclusive definition for what a species is. In the last century, a brilliant scientist by the name of Earnst Mayr tried to define a species as a reproducing POPULATION of organisms that routinely produced offspring that were essentially like their parents. (I hope I got the reference to Mayr right. If not, forgive me. It's been over 50 years since I had to learn this stuff in college!) But when you are looking at some slimy, squiggly thing in one hand, it's very hard to use that definition to justify calling it a different species from the squiggly, slimy thing in your other hand! That definition is of little or no help at all in what is called a "differential diagnosis."

If we can't be sure of what a species is, how can we be sure of what a hybrid is? Okay, so maybe we should sidestep the whole issue and use the term "kinds" instead. If you have two different kinds of tarantulas that manage to produce offspring (e.g., a curlyhair and a redrump) when interbred, are the offspring "hybrids?"

Well, we really don't have a good definition, a differential diagnosis type definition, to tell us how to recognize a hybrid when we see one either! In fact, there are numerous examples of creatures (in the broadest sense, including but not limited to bacteria, fungi, vascular plants, protozoans, worms [choose your favorite!], vertebrates, etc.) that exist as nominally different and separate "species," for which there are "intergrades" where the two kinds' populations overlap! Are these hybrids? Or "legacy" populations of the original progenetive organism before it diverged into two different kinds? Or a third kind beginning to evolve away from the others?

3) Back-in-the-day when I took a college genetics course, geneticists didn't care very much about species, but rather about whether or not two copies of a gene or chromosome were similar in makeup, or different. If they were different, they were often called "hybrid." Using that definition, we - every living one of us, and all those who are dead as well - are hybrids!

Many, MANY moons ago, on another forum, long since defunct, one chap roundly chastised another contributor who was also asking about hybridizing two kinds of tarantulas. It was obvious from the outset that our hero of the first part was still delusional from the high school biology definition of species, while our hero of the second part, while he was asking a perfectly rational question, was completely ignorant of the maelstrom that he stepped into!

I wish you better luck, my friend.

 

[Stan Schultz]

Im curious to know if anyone has any proof of any of this? Without sounding rude I’m not interested in opinions. They aren’t helpful, but if someone knows links to papers or has photographic evidence (not pulled off google) it would be appreciated.

 

[Rs50matt]

Ok I think I follow what your saying. But I’m still none the wiser.
I’ll try word it more directly.
Why do some tarantulas have different localities and not just a completely different name? A Honduran albo is no more alike a Nicaraguan than a Vagans is. Yet it shares the same “species” name. Why not just give it a different name?

 

[Stan Schultz]

Ok I think I follow what your saying. But I’m still none the wiser.
I’ll try word it more directly.
Why do some tarantulas have different localities and not just a completely different name?

The scientific name (your "species name") of a tarantula is NOT based on location, but rather on morphological/physical characters (classically) and on the details of the characteristics of their genetic material (DNA, modern approach). A parallel example might be Aphonoplema hentzi, variously called Oklahoma brown, Texas brown, Arkansas brown tarantula, and several other names. The fact that they are listed from different locations is merely the result of them having a wide distribution.

The common name of a tarantula is based mostly on the whims of their collectors, what their exporters had to tell their Customs and Export people to get them out of their country and into ours, typographical errors, and whatever the importer/wholesaler dreams up in an effort to sell them faster! There is little rhyme nor reason behind their naming.

The scientific name of a tarantula is (supposed to be) generated following a long list of rules compiled by the ICZN (International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature), a worldwide organization of zoologists who've made a life's work out of untangling scientifically naming all living animals. Almost always, those rules are followed.

That system is standardized and maintained to accurately describe and catalog all animals on planet Earth. Considering the magnitude of the project, they're not doing that bad of a job.

Bottom line: The major difference between the two naming systems is that scientific names are more or less logical and well controlled, while common names are willy-nilly, whimsical products of someone's imagination.

You're making the same mistake that almost everybody does: You're trying to compare apples and oranges. Any correspondence between these two naming systems, in many cases at least, is purely accidental.

A Honduran albo is no more alike a Nicaraguan than a Vagans is.

I disagree with this statement. All that I've seen (more than 50 years of experience and observations) of the so-called Honduran and Nicaraguan curlyhairs, baring very minor differences in coloring, are essentially the same spider. (Color is almost never used as a means of distinguishing kinds of creatures by scientists.) Can you offer any evidence to the contrary? Someplace where an authority describes a believable difference? (Unless, of course, our authority misidentified one or the other individual spider, or was working from photos rather than the real animals. Photos are often exceedingly misleading.)

Yet it shares the same “species” name. Why not just give it a different name?

Ah! But that's been done already. And it's a huge part of the problem: Trying to understand the system and its weak spots. The "science" of taxonomy started out in the mid 1700s, back in the dark ages of biology, when the basic scientific plan was based on religious premises, not solid research and logical thinking.

In the following 260 some years until today, there have been a truly marvelous number of instances of mistaken identities, attempts at monetary gain by falsifying data, bad science, rank ignorance, reckless haste causing errors, and much more, to mess us up and confuse us.

So now we have duplications all over the place. For instance, one species may be known by several scientific names. This was quite common early on when arachnologists gave males and females of the same kind completely different scientific names because they looked so different.

Or one scientific name may be used for more than one species, simply because so many of their distinguishing characters are so subtle or hidden. (The recent realization that there were two different, almost indistinguishable species, Brachypelma smithi and Brachypelma hamorii instead of just one is an example.)

All this has caused massive amounts of confusion in the field of taxonomy. No, we don't need any more useless or duplicate names! Enough is almost too much as it is!

The fact is that the tarantulas that we are so infatuated with, have a lineage and history that goes back something like 500 million years. That gives them plenty of time to become almost unbelievably complex and subtle creatures, perhaps more than we'll ever completely understand.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it...

... is to not fret excessively about the naming of tarantulas. Far greater minds than yours and mine are trying to tackle that issue as I type this. They are not having huge amounts of success, and their progress is exceedingly slow. These last two problems are the result of not enough research money, and the immense number of organisms that we're dealing with.

Several years ago the estimate of the number of all living organisms was usually quoted to be 10 million, more or less. Since the advent of DNA typing and genome work, some scientists think we may be sharing this planet with 5 or 10 times that many different kinds of living organisms.

Instead, pay closer attention to the animals themselves. Try to figure out what they might be expected to be doing and are not, as well as what they really are doing as they sit in their cages watching you!

Hopefully, this message will NOT self-destruct, ever!