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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Stan Schultz" data-source="post: 186342" data-attributes="member: 28438">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.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.)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! <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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