Taxonomic descriptions of nine new species of the goblin spider genera Cavisternum, Grymeus, Ischnothyreus, Opopaea, Pelicinus and Silhouettella (Araneae, Oonopidae) from Sri Lanka

Ranasinghe, Udara; Benjamin, Suresh P.

doi:10.3897/evolsyst.2.25200

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…We believe the latter would be a timely endeavor given that reflections around gender issues are gaining ground within the arachnological community (check, for example, the multiple initiatives by the recently founded group SWA-Support Women in Arachnology; @SwaWomen). We leave the answers to these and other questions (Ranasinghe & Benjamin, 2018;Ileperuma Arachchi & Benjamin, 2019). Here, taxonomy and creativity come together to express perhaps the best of human emotions: love.…”

Section: A Futile Exercise?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Taxonomic practice, creativity, and fashion: What’s in a spider name?

Mammola

Viel

Amiar

et al. 2022

Preprint

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There is a secret pleasure in naming new species. Besides traditional etymologies recalling the sampling locality, habitat, or morphology of the species, etymologies may be tributes to some meaningful person (for example, the species collector, the author husband or wife, or a celebrity), pop culture references, and even exercises of enigmatography. The possibility of choosing witty or even playful names for new species departs from the otherwise impersonal and old-fashioned writing style that is common in taxonomic papers; but, how has the descriptor choice for specific etymologies changed over the 300+ years since the introduction of the Linnaean binomial system of nomenclature? Using an unprecedented dataset of 48,464 etymologies (all valid species and subspecies of spiders described between 1757 and May 2020), we tested the hypothesis that species names given by taxonomists are deeply influenced by their cultural background. In particular, we asked whether naming practices change through space (continent in which the species was found) or have changed through time (year of description). We observed spatial and temporal differences in the way taxonomists name new species. In absolute terms, etymologies referring to morphology were the most frequently used. In relative terms, however, references to morphology peaked in 1850-1900 and then began to decline, with a parallel increase in etymologies dedicated to people and geography. Currently, these are the most widely used, with ca. 38% of all etymologies of spider species described in the last ten years referring to geography, ca. 25% to people, and ca. 25% to morphology. Interestingly, there has been a dramatic increase in etymologies referring to pop culture and other cultural aspects in the last two decades, especially in Europe and the Americas. While such fashionable names often carry little or no biological information regarding the species itself, they help give visibility to the science of taxonomy, a discipline currently facing a profound crisis within academia. Taxonomy is among the most unchanged disciplines across the last centuries in terms of background, tools, rules, and writing style; but our analysis suggests that taxonomists remain deeply influenced by their living time and space.

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Section: A Futile Exercise?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Taxonomic practice, creativity, and fashion: What’s in a spider name?

Mammola

Viel

Amiar

et al. 2022

Preprint

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show abstract

“…However, such studies might offer new perspectives on processes generating island biodiversity [3,4]. Further, short-range endemics with very restricted distributions, as often found in Sri Lanka, may prove to be important flagship taxa for monitoring the effects of climate change and other threats on forest habitats [5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Origin and diversification of free-living stick spiders of Sri Lanka including the description of four new species of Rhomphaea L. Koch, 1872 and two new species of Neospintharus Exline, 1950

Tharmarajan

Benjamin

2022

PLoS ONE

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Sri Lanka is a biologically diverse South Asian island, and together with the Western Ghats (Southern India) is one of the 36 world’s most biologically diverse areas. Here, we investigated the origin and diversification of Rhomphaea and Neospintharus of Sri Lanka using sequences of three genes: mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) and 16S rRNA (16S); and nuclear 28S rRNA (28S). Our phylogeny included 32 taxa (30 ingroup and 2 outgroup). We used Bayesian Inference and maximum likelihood methods to reconstruct the placement of species, divergence time estimations and their foraging behavior with an emphasis on species from Sri Lanka. Our phylogenetic hypothesis support the monophyly of Argyrodinae as well as the monophyly of Rhomphaea, where Rhomphaea is a sister group of Neospintharus. Further, our analysis also suggests that Sri Lanka was colonized by Argyrodinae several times. Additionally, the following new species are described: Rhomphaea shanthi sp. nov., Rhomphaea jacko sp. nov., Rhomphaea martini sp. nov., Rhomphaea marani sp. nov., Neospintharus kandelensis sp. nov. and Neospintharus ohiyiaensis sp. nov.

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Taxonomic practice, creativity and fashion: what’s in a spider name?

Mammola

Viel

Amiar

et al. 2023

Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society

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There is a secret pleasure in naming new species. Besides traditional etymologies recalling the sampling locality, habitat or morphology of the species, names may be tributes to some meaningful person, pop culture references and even exercises of enigmatography. Using a dataset of 48 464 spider etymologies, we tested the hypothesis that species names given by taxonomists are deeply influenced by their cultural background. Specifically, we asked whether naming practices change through space or have changed through time. In absolute terms, etymologies referring to morphology were the most frequently used. In relative terms, references to morphology peaked in 1850–1900 and then began to decline, with a parallel increase in etymologies dedicated to people and geography. We also observed a dramatic increase in etymologies referring to pop culture and other cultural aspects in 2000–2020, especially in Europe and the Americas. While such fashionable names often carry no biological information regarding the species itself, they help give visibility to taxonomy, a discipline currently facing a profound crisis in academia. Taxonomy is among the most unchanged disciplines across the last centuries in terms of tools, rules and writing style. Yet, our analysis suggests that taxonomists remain deeply influenced by their living time and space.

show abstract

Taxonomic descriptions of nine new species of the goblin spider genera Cavisternum, Grymeus, Ischnothyreus, Opopaea, Pelicinus and Silhouettella (Araneae, Oonopidae) from Sri Lanka

Abstract: Nine new species of goblin spiders are described in six different

Cited by 4 publications

References 31 publications

Taxonomic practice, creativity, and fashion: What’s in a spider name?

Taxonomic practice, creativity, and fashion: What’s in a spider name?

Origin and diversification of free-living stick spiders of Sri Lanka including the description of four new species of Rhomphaea L. Koch, 1872 and two new species of Neospintharus Exline, 1950

Taxonomic practice, creativity and fashion: what’s in a spider name?

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