Examining collection Saturday 1/7. Any tips?

I've been thinking that the bugguide way was to put all "probable" IDs under that taxon, which is why I liked naming the groups "possible." If I had my druthers, I'd at least have that distinction throughout all of bugguide. A "possible Misumessus" grouping would be great for me, because I am making a concerted effort to study them too. However, I believe I have found undescribed species of Misumessus (despite there being only one described species in the world at the moment), so what I really really want gets more complicated still.

Wow, you've done a lot of work! What would you like me to do with my checklist? It's very long! I don't think I should post it into this thread -- we're off subject anyway. I could post it to another thread or just email it to you.

When you think you're done, I could go through it looking for ones you've missed.

Thanks for all the work you've done. I see everything is set up for me to go through and suggest some refiling. I'll comment on each image to say where I think it should be moved and why, and I'll also keep a separate list of all my suggestions that a BG editor could use as a checklist to make sure they see all my suggestions.

missed some. Just drop us an email of any image numbers we need to check.

Not sure if you know about advanced search, but it might help in checking against your suggestion checklist. If you want to know which image numbers have been placed under asperata, for example, you can click on search without putting anything in the searchbox. This will take you to the search page where you will find a tab for advanced search in the third row. Click there and you will be taken to the advanced search page. In the second box for Taxon ID# start typing aspera... and the software will show you all the pages and node numbers with that name. You can click on possible asperata or Mecaphesa asperata and it will put the node number in the search box. Click on GO and you will get a list of all the images posted to that node. For example here

They come out by image date rather than node number, so that may be a little awkward, but it shows you all the numbers of all the images placed there. It might be a nice double check for you against the list you're making. If you actually need them in node number order, you might write to Mike Boone who can probably get the output in that form, though you may have to wait until he can find the time.

Don't know if this helps, but thought we would send it along.

Thanks for the info on the advanced search. I'm actually a programmer and just converted my list into a web page and systematically clicked on all the links. I made 103 recommended changes, and you did exactly 100 of them. The three you missed were on specimens for which I had made a recommendation a while ago but which were never refiled. I didn't comment on them again, which is why you missed them.

I'm suggesting that all of these can go under Mecaphesa asperata: 607836, 583279, and 580926.

for possible dubia. Is that correct? Do you want that page added also?

Yes please! I think it would be very useful. I just finished going through all the unfiled Mecaphesa. Phew!

Awesome! I see you're doing a lot of work. I haven't heard from Kevin about the proposal though. I just moved everything out of lepida into the new "celer-importuna-lepida complex" you must have created. The lepida group is empty now, so you can delete it. Thank you!

Great, thank you John-Jane Person Complex!

That could be helpful, knowing that Dondale & Redner 1978 only found celer and asperata in the Great Lakes area. I have some confidence with asperata, so by the process of elimination, we can get a better sense of what celer might look like, at least up north.

However, just north of the Great Lakes, in Ontario, they also identify carletonica. Since they only examined a few specimens from this area, I'm not sure we can definitively say that there are no other Mecaphesa here. But it does help us assign confidence levels.

Okay, now to post my proposal, below Kevin's comment...

I agree that it is a bit of a mess. If it helps, the only determination labels that I have ever dropped in Mecaphesa vials are for asperata, celer, and dubia. I'm also finding myself dubious of some of Allen Dean's Mecaphesa ID's, so I'm not trusting them. I need to compare my specimens directly with specimen's ID'd by Dondale, Redner, Schick, and Gertsch.

On my computer, I am keeping a group of specimens under a directory named "Mecaphesa nr lepida." You have two of those specimens under Mecaphesa lepida on Bugguide. However, I see apparent differences with the lepida descriptions, so I'm reluctant to declare them to be M. lepida just yet.

The two carletonica specimens we have where determined by you and Allen Dean.

There are many images under M. celer that I see no basis for placement in M. celer. That doesn't mean there isn't a basis, just that no basis was given. I'm doubtful of some of them.

I'm not sure why we have a lumping taxon for asperata and celer sibling species. I can understand a "Celer sibling species" lumping taxon though. None of my specimens would likely go there, but it might make sense to put unscoped specimen images there.

The specimen listed for the aikoae-californica complex has a palp identical to this one listed under Texas indet. species. I suspect this one is undescribed. I don't know that yet, though. The remaining Texas indet. species specimen also does not fit any single species description, but the palp appears to have exactly some characters of M. celer and exactly some characters of my "Mecaphesa nr lepida" group. If it's neither celer nor lepida, it could be a hybrid or else yet another possible undescribed species. I don't think there's any way around these specimens being messy. Perhaps a better category name would be "No apparent species fit" or "Possibly undescribed" (except that the latter doesn't really include hybrids, if there are any).

I have gone through the Mecaphesa images making comments on the spiders I'm confident ID'ing -- some male and female asperata, most male celer, and most male dubia -- but it's been hit or miss which ones Bugguide editors thought appropriate to move to those taxons. As a result, it's my opinion that we still have these spiders unnecessarily mixed among other taxons or remaining un-ID'd in the Mecaphesa taxon.

(Ugh. While looking around just now, I accidentally clicked on "unlink" for the epigynum shot of this specimen. Where did it go? How do I get it back?)

P.S. I do appreciate your valiant attempts to adjust the Mecaphesa group to accomodate my findings though!

It may not help in this case, given the time elapsed, but, for future reference, if you hit the "back" button on your browser, it will generally show the page in its previous state using the information in its cache rather than getting the new version from the website. You should be able to find the thumbnail for the other image so you can tag it and relink it. Once you close that window, though, the browser clears the old information from its cache, and that method won't work anymore.

The other method relies on the fact that images are often posted in succession: going to recent view and finding the image you know should lead you to the other one.

Okay, great, thanks! So I guess "unlink" is "delete."

Okay, here's my thinking. Feel free to counter...

== Current Groups ==

(-) aikoae - empty
(-) asperata - fine
(-) californica - contains vouchered images, so leave it
(-) carletonica - one by Dean, one by Kevin, but low confidence
(-) celer - some confirmed, some without basis
(-) dubia - fine
(-) importuna - fine
(-) lepida - close to lepida but may not be lepida
(-) quercina - no comment
(-) schlingeri - no comment
(-) asperata/celer sibling species - separate into other groups
(-) Texas spec. indet. - 540739 likely undescribed, 538831 in celer-importuna-lepida complex
(-) aikoae-californica complex - 605898 likely undescribed (same as 540739), but definitely in this complex

== Proposed Groups ==

(-) asperata
(-) californica
(-) celer
(-) dubia
(-) importuna
(-) quercina
(-) schlingeri
(-) possible asperata
(-) possible celer
(-) aikoae-californica-carletonica complex
(-) celer-importuna-lepida complex

The latter two are not official complexes but rather based on confusingly similar palps. They are however subsets of the celer complex that Schick 1965 identifies, except for my placement of carletonica, which Schick 1965 doesn't treat. Maybe we should call them "subcomplexes"? (Eep!)

== To Do ==

(-) Delete the empty aikoae group (for now).
(-) Rename group "aikoae-californica complex" to "aikoae-californica-carletonica complex". Specimen 605898 remains in this group.
(-) Move all existing carletonica to "aikoae-californica-carletonica complex" and then delete the emptied carletonica group (for now).
(-) Move 540739 from "Texas spec. indet." to "aikoae-californica-carletonica complex".
(-) Create group "celer-importuna-lepida complex".
(-) Move 538831 from "Texas spec. indet." to "celer-importuna-lepida complex".
(-) Delete the emptied group "Texas spec. indet."
(-) Create group "possible asperata". I see plenty to throw in here.
(-) Create group "possible celer". I'm not sure how many I'd put in here. I might throw some confusing males in here, and I might include specimens justified as celer by proximity to the Great Lakes and clearly not being asperata.
(-) Move every specimen out of "asperata/celer sibling species" into one of asperata, celer, possible asperata, and possible celer, justifying the move for each specimen in comments. I can go through making my suggestions and offering justifications if you like. Delete the now emptied "asperata/celer sibling species" when done.
(-) Revisit each specimen in the celer group to move all of those not justified to be celer into one of asperata, possible asperata, possible celer, and Mecaphesa. Every move must be justified in comments. Anything that cannot be justified gets moved up to the "Mecaphesa" group. I can make my proposals in the comments if you like.

I can do as much as I can of the above and then make a list of what remains to be done, assuming this is a good plan. It would be helpful to have the new groups though.

I'll give some thought to my preferred organization on BugGuide and will propose it here. Thanks!

Thanks Kevin. BTW, are you getting the emails I've been sending you directly? I don't believe you've responded to any.

I see four that are there just now, but only sent within the last hour or so. The only thing I find in my spam folder is "Swiss Apotheke" and "Playboy Viagra".

Okay, I guess you replied to those from this weekend here on the forum rather than in email. Thanks! ~joe

I had no idea that Thomisidae needed a revision so badly until reading this. The gray area is like an itch that we can't scratch, lol. We need to recruit more people into the field of arachnology! :-) Last I heard, there's only about 300 professionals worldwide.

I'm glad you've shared what you found out and even took the time to upload the photos here! I jotted down the three things Allen looks at on the palp and put them on a sticky note in my copy of SONA. I haven't done much work on the flower crabs, but it will likely come in handy when I do.

Thank you for photographing that Modysticus modestus for me! Looks like they're going to look just like Ozyptila.

You're welcome Mandy. Call me crazy, but I find myself wanting to take up the challenge of working towards a revision of Mecaphesa, and maybe also do some experiments to definitely decide whether I have an undescribed Misumessus. UT apparently has a number of undetermined spiders in archive, collected from across North America, so I've got spiders to work with. I also plan to make more visits to TAMU to make sense of Allen's IDs. I'll mostly be doing this offline, though, occasionally reporting interesting finds to BG, or dropping in for help.

That would be great! You should go for it; I think arachnology requires at least a little bit of craziness in us all. :-)

I can't remember are you also working with that DNA group?

Lynette, I'm not sure if you're asking me or Mandy. I guess I should be thinking about how to get specimens sampled. Jeremy Miller once told me that if I wanted reliable DNA analysis, I should be storing specimens in 80% ethyl. I'm using pre-mixed solutions from UT at 70%. Maybe I should start mixing my own. Thanks for the link!

Cool! I had missed that forum thread, glad you linked to it Lynette! I'm going to check it out and see what to do. I use BoldSystems.org for checking out certain species sometimes (usually the habitus of the preserved ones aren't a huge help, but still worth looking at), but have never registered or even looked into how to help out yet.

Here are some of the photos I took:

Modysticus modestus female:

Mecaphesa carletonica male:

Mecaphesa californica female:

Mecaphesa asperata female:

I need to go back and take more photos.

Thank you Kevin! As you know by now, I ended up taking photos of a number of things.

Unfortunately, this event was mainly a social, so I didn't spend as much time as I would have liked in the collections.

I talked with Allen Dean about Latrodectus. He says that he no longer distinguishes mactans and hesperus. I didn't ask him about variolus because I didn't realize we had it in the state. He says that the genitalia are extremely variable and we don't have good rules for ID'ing them morphologically. He also says that he has some specimens with really unusual genitalia too, suggesting that there are perhaps several more species out there. Allen says there may be utility to distinguishing species by color patterns, but because we don't even know how many species we have, this may be pattern classification than species classification. (I'm paraphrasing him of course.)

Thanks, Joe! Can't wait to see what the future holds for Latrodectus taxonomy!

You or Kevin will have to take that one up. I've got my hands full with Mecaphesa. Corrinids also fascinate me, so I'll be playing with them every chance I get too. I keep finding them among ant colonies.

That's also what I expected with Latrodectus -- seems like the perfect candidate for DNA-barcoding, if you ask me.

Jeremy Miller was working on that a number of years ago. He was asking me and others to preserve spiders in 80% ethyl so he could do DNA studies. He's moved on though, and I'm not sure what the results were of his studies.

I was just looking through the M. celer shots on BugGuide. Some of those photos are filed there without any statement about how the determination was made. My suspicion is that many don't belong there.

because they looked like images of celer on the internet, without the realization that others may look similar. We have not moved them off because we also couldn't say they weren't celer. If you have some you want moved from the page, just send an email to us or Lynette with the image numbers. We have been leaving things alone until we learned how to tell them apart....

Unfortunately for me, this practice on BugGuide prevents me from using BugGuide to attempt to find common field-observable characters for a species (unless I painfully try to mentally separate the confirmed from the guesses). I have to stick with my own photo collection for that. It also makes me distrustful of using BugGuide to identify a critter based on closest visual match.

However, were BugGuide to distinguish high-confidence specimens from lump-for-now specimens and allow me to restrict my view to just high-confidence specimens, that would enable me to do things things on BugGuide with confidence.

(Sorry, my preferences just don't match BugGuide practice.)

> However, were BugGuide to distinguish high-confidence
> specimens from lump-for-now specimens

When we have specimens that have been examined by an expert, or at least have been determined from genital examination under the microscope of a collected specimen (or in the future, DNA barcoding), we do label them as such. "Eventually" (2020??) the software development here will support better tagging/flagging of such specimens so that you can more easily differentiate specimens on this basis.

There are of course species that someone familiar with local fauna can identify with relative certainty, even from photos, but there is no easily applicable standard by which to ascertain/classify this. At a practical level, one looks at who made the call or moved a specimen to species. If you see apparent discrepencies, call them out (using the thumb tag is a great way to create temp. sub-groups of various specimens -- see what John and Jane do).

But not to forget: identifying spiders solely on the basis of closest visual match is and will remain an iffy business. Only when we can start to increase the number of 'voucher-type' specimens will it become clearer how well this works for many species. (As an example, take a peek at this motley collection of Theridiosoma gemmosum immatures from the Norwegian Forum: Ow, who knocked us out of the tree?

"There are of course species that someone familiar with local fauna can identify with relative certainty, even from photos, but there is no easily applicable standard by which to ascertain/classify this."

Right, sometimes a visual ID is all that's necessary. Sometimes an expert can make an ID and can't explain how they know. And sometimes we have good genitalia matches. I'm thinking that all we need is a high confidence/low confidence flag that editors can set.

"But not to forget: identifying spiders solely on the basis of closest visual match is and will remain an iffy business."

This is exactly why I bring this up. If we want to use BugGuide to help us learn what the distinguishing field characters are, when there are any, then we have to be able to restrict ourselves to just the high-confidence thumbs. If we can't restrict ourselves to high-confidence thumbs, it is painful to try to use BugGuide for this purpose.

> a high confidence/low confidence flag

Ah, yes now I understand what you mean.

Also, you may be interested in this discussion of the possibility of a new species of Misumessus, found under this interesting male:



We have to decide whether to lump them all under Misumessus oblongus or not.

What a handsome fella! He does look quite a bit different than other adult male M. oblongus, I wonder if a color morph could be a possibility? Or even more fun, maybe it is indeed a new species. I don't really have an opinion at this point as to whether this one should stay under M. oblongus or just genus as this point. Hopefully others will chime in.

Well, it ended up under M. oblongus for now. If I get my hands on the right specimens, I'll do some mating experiments. I guess I'll need to read up on protocol.

Thank you John and Jane! I did get to read this before going, but I actually didn't have net access while I was there.

I recently posted a photo of a live Misumessus female:

I didn't have enough time to examine many celer, asperata, and others in detail. TAMU has tons of celer specimens, though. I know the alcohol changes the coloration, but I would like to make another trip to compare color patterns. I don't have a good sense of what celer looks like, but I do think I have a good sense of what asperata looks like, at least here in central Texas, because I've seen dozens of them. I posted two on BugGuide. It would be nice to confirm my thinking in the collections. I did photograph one preserved female asperata. I don't know how to distinguish celer from carletonica, californica, and coloradensis.

I think I'll make more visits to see if I can discern any color patterns.