#98 - THE REVISION OF PHORMINGOCHILUS & RELATED ORNITHOCTONINE ARBOREALS

In the just released Journal of the British Tarantula Society, 30(3), I co-authored a scientific revision with Andrew Smith.

Smith, A.M. & M.A. Jacobi. 2015.
Revision of the genus Phormingochilus (Araneae, Theraphosidae, Ornithoctoninae) with the description of three new species from Sulawesi and Sarawak and notes on the placement of the genera Cyriopagopus, Lampropelma and Omothymus.
Journal of the British Tarantula Society, 30(3): 26-48.

Within moments of this journal landing first on British doorsteps, one knuckle-dragging knucklehead with too much time on his hands had already posted the title and abstract on social media. I don't use Faffbook anymore, but while in Costa Rica people sent me screenshots of the heated discussion that followed. We knew our paper would be controversial. We knew we would stir up some shit and piss off some other workers interested in this material. Fortunately for me, I am insulated from the controversy as I don't read FB or other social media or forums, and Andrew is the senior and corresponding author. He is the chief "feather ruffler". Write him.

I have repeatedly urged you to join the BTS and receive its prestigious Journal of which I am now the Editor. If you want to read this article and more you can go to http://www.thebts.co.uk/bts-e-store/bts-memberships/ and get at least a digital subscription so you can download the PDF. Since the abstract was typed in full on Faffbook by one particularly annoying faffer, I won't bother to do so here. I will, however, provide a synopsis of our work.

#1 - We describe three new Phormingochilus.

• P. kirki Smith & Jacobi, 2015 gives a home to Pocock's male "P. everetti", which has long known to belong to another species
• P. carpenteri Smith & Jacobi, 2015 is a new species from Sulawesi that is almost certainly our hobby's "Cyriopagopus sp. Sulawesi black"
• P. pennellhewletti Smith & Jacobi 2015 is a new species that was discovered about seven years ago by Mark Pennell and Dean Hewlett in the Kelabit Highlands of Borneo. In some ways you could say that it is the darker and differently colored and marked highland version of the lowland P. everetti.

Additionally, we note that while no material of P. fuchsi was studied we believe that it is very likely what we in the hobby call "Cyriopagopus sp. Sumatra tiger". We treat "P. tigrinus" as a junior synonym of P. everetti.

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***ADDED 12/19/2015: Understand that no pet trade material was examined for this revision. My personal feeling is that "Cyriopagopus sp. Sulawesi" is, in fact, Phormingochilus carpenteri, and "Cyriopagopus sp. Sumatra" is Phormingochilus fuchsi. In the comments to the original post Tom Patterson asked about "Lampropelma sp. Borneo black". Although still undescribed and not examined by our paper, this spider should now be more appropriately called "Phormingochilus sp. Borneo black".***

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***ADDED 1/1/2016: Understand that no pet trade material was examined for this revision. Another reader asked about what to call "Cyriopagopus sp. hatihati". This is an Indonesian spider very much like O. schioedtei and therefore I would call it Omothymus sp. hatihati.***

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Moving on to other genera, we resurrect the historical genus Omothymus to contain the Malaysian mainland arboreal tarantulas. This means that Lampropelma violaceopes is now Omothymus violaceopes and Cyriopagopus schioedtei and C. thorelli are now O. schioedtei and O. thorelli. These two species may prove to be synonymous. The final Omothymus is O. dromeus, but we note that this Philippine species certainly belongs in another genus. Personally I think it will eventually be treated as Orphnaecus, but this isn't a conclusion of our paper and Orphnaecus is Selenocosmiinae, not Ornithoctoninae! So the jury is definitely out on that one!

The only species left in the genus Lampropelma is L. nigerrimum, a very different and stocky black arboreal found only on the isolated Sangir (Sangihe) Island.

With its existing species removed, Cyriopagopus is treated as a senior synonym of Haplopelma thereby relegating all valid "Haplopelma" to the genus "Cyriopagopus", which is in line with the type species C. paganus. We do note that further work on this material will likely restore Haplopelma and split the species into different groups with the Thailand and Myanmar species returning to the genus Melopoeus. But this is for other workers to decide.

So buy some more label maker tape and correct your terrariums ;) And buy a BTS membership and read the paper in full. And stay out of conversations with the Arachnobored and Faffbookers. They will rot your brain.

BUT ... If you do see discussions of this paper online feel free to post a direct link to this blog entry in the comments ... Thanks!

http://kissmybighairyspider.blogspot.com/2015/12/98-revision-of-phormingochilus-related.html

MJ