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Entylegyne Spider Classification

I'm doing a term paper for my Spider Biology class here at KU on "The Cladistics of Orbiculariae and the Monophyly of the Orb Web" from the research there have been many sub-classification such as the RTA Clade (Coddington) and of course the Orbiculariae clade and the Deinopoidea and Araneoidea within it. While the phylogenetics change a lot at the family level, it seems as though the basic Deinopoidea/Araneoidea classification is monophyletic, though there are some competing theories published in China recently (Pan Hong-Chun, Wu Bo Shan et al 2007). Would it be appropriate to add further divisions according to Coddington and several newer phylogenies for the higher taxa? Also, if any of the spider experts could weigh in on this with their opinions or favorite articles, it would be most appreciated. I've found quite a few, but as always, more is better (usually)

Thanks, Will

I've added my paper
I've added my paper to the Articles section, this represents the taxonomy levels I'd like to implement in the Entelegyne spiders section. As for it being impossible to use using the taxonomy tab, I think that's a bit harsh. It's no different than the beetles page, the beetles often have 8 levels of classification (order-species), the spiders only have 7 (order-species)

 
Here's what we mean by "impossible"
which really means "difficult for us to use". If we are looking for orb weavers or jumping spiders and go to the Spider page and click on taxonomy we will face two large long words that have no meaning for us. We have learned over time to click on the second long word. That will take us to another page with two more long words on it. Click the first of these meaningless words and then repeat when you see the next three big words. You will finally be on a page with the familiar terms of the families of spiders. Now we are home free and know what we are doing. Could we over time come to know what those first seven long words mean? Possibly, if we really decided to focus on spider systematics. But we don't see that happening in the near future. Our goal is to help people identify their spiders and get them to information about their creature as easily as possible. If they begin to want to know more about spider systematics, there should be a place where they can read about it, but it doesn't have to be in the taxonomic structure we use on BugGuide to organize images. That's all we are saying. Let's have that information somewhere, but let's not add more confusing layers to penetrate for folks who just want to learn a little something about spiders. We don't want the average bugguider to say "Forget it. This is too hard. I'm gonna take up birding!"

I've added my paper
I've added my paper to the Articles section, this represents the taxonomy levels I'd like to implement in the Entelegyne spiders section

If by "adding" you mean
putting additional info on the current guide pages, we would say go right ahead. If by "adding" you mean adding more guide pages, complicating the higher taxonomy with more super and sub categories, we would not be interested. It is already too difficult to move through the spiders using the taxonomy tab, we don't see a need for greater complication there. But more info on already exosting pages would be wonderful.

 
"...already too difficult"
I agree. We could remove the node representing subphylum Chelicerata, and go directly to class Arachnida (adding a note to the Arthropoda page, saying that all Arachnida belong to subphylum Chelicerata).

In order Araneae, if we removed the node representing suborder Mesothelae (which should not have been created because that group of spiders occurs only in southeast Asia) we could also remove the only remaining suborder (Opisthothelae) and go directly to the two infraorders (adding notes to the Araneae page about the suborders that have been removed).

This would give us two fewer levels of organization to navigate through, and no information would be lost in the process. How about allowing 30 days for comments on these suggested changes?

 
We're going the wrong way....
We're going the wrong way.... should have kept my mouth shut :-( I would like to point out that the beetles are far more confusing already than what I was planning. I thought since it wasn't a problem, this wouldn't be either.

 
Alas
I was speaking of adding higher classification schemes. When I finish my term paper, I'll find some way of directing people so they can download it, I'll stick the link at the "Aranea" page or maybe in the Entelegyne page.

Over our heads?
Well, this is certainly over 'my' head:-) Might I suggest subscribing to one of the arachnology listservs out there? I know there must be at least one. You could also try the Entomo-l listserv, as there are some arachno-savvy folks on that one, too. I'm afraid most of the people here (with several exceptions, of course) are mostly "general knowledge" folks. Good luck with the paper!

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