When you purchase through links on our site , we may earn an affiliate mission . Here ’s how it crop .
A newly detect Lycosa tarentula sport a black pelage that is as gloomy and brooding as its celebrity namesake : the famous singer Johnny Cash .
Tarantulas , the hairy spiders that stole movie scenes and bring home the bacon hearts in popular films like " Home Alone , " " Raiders of the Lost Ark , " and " Dr. No , " take a starring role in a new study that reorganizes their group , reclassifying the majority of 55 knowntarantula speciesand bestow 14 new ace , including the creepy - crawly named for Cash .
An adult male of Aphonopelma johnnycashi, a new tarantula species named for country singer Johnny Cash.
The bailiwick researchers assess tight to 3,000 European wolf spider from across the American Southwest . scientist integrated tarantula deoxyribonucleic acid into the subject area alongside anatomy , geography and behaviour gleaned from wanderer that were gathered by the researchers , contributed by " citizen - scientists " and borrowed from museum collections , to deliver the most comprehensive overview of tarantulas ever foregather , allot to the new discipline , published online Feb. 4 in the journalZooKeys . [ Tarantula Photos : Gallery of ' Eight - Legged Teddy Bears ' ]
Even though tarantulas as a group are generally well known and easily agnise by the world from their appearance in popular polish , far less was cognise to science about their dispersion , diversity and how they live in the natural state , according to the study ’s lead author , Chris Hamilton . Hamilton , an arachnologist and graduate student at Auburn University ’s Department of Biological Sciences , order Live Science that " not much behavioral or ecological work has been done to understand these metal money and the preferences they hold up in , " he said . So he position out to do something about that .
Too many species
Compare the largest and the smallest tarantula species in the United States: adult females of Aphonopelma anax (L) from Texas and Aphonopelma paloma (R) from Arizona.
While tarantulas can vary greatly in size — from a leg span appraise about 6 column inch ( 15 centimeter ) long to tiny individuals capable to fit comfortably on the face of a U.S. quarter — European wolf spider species generally do n’t vary much in their anatomical features . For European wolf spider systematist of the past , this place a frustrating challenge , ensue in classifications that divided tarantulas intomany more speciesthan the group required , Hamilton discover .
" There was huge murkiness as to what was a species , " Hamilton told Live Science .
For more than 10 year , Hamilton and his fellow worker gathered and analyzed Lycosa tarentula from a range of habitats in the southwesterly United States . Brent Hendrixson , study carbon monoxide gas - source and chairperson of the Department of Biology at Millsaps College in Mississippi , localise up a WWW page that allowed citizen - scientist to send the investigator hundreds of specimens from locations across the U.S. , including some where tarantulas had never been collected before , Hamilton said .
Tarantulas stored in museum collection leaven to be useful , too . The Auburn University Museum of Natural History ( AUMNH ) houses a tarantula appeal containing more than 2,300 specimen , which bet an important part in the study , according to Jason Bond , the report ’s older author and AUMNH managing director . sweep more than 50 years of collection , the AUMNH tarantulas provided critical data onvariations between tarantula populationsand biogeography , " essential elements to understand how variety of sprightliness on our satellite has evolve and become spatially distributed , " Bond evidence Live Science in an email . [ Goliath Birdeater : Images of a Colossal Spider ]
When the researchers ' body of work was done , the European wolf spider group that originally contained 55 species had been pare to 15 , with the 14 new specie bringing the lordly amount to 29 , they report in the study .
" The Man in Black "
One of the new wanderer species , Aphonopelma johnnycashi , had a particularly well - eff namesake — famed Isaac Bashevis Singer and songwriter Johnny Cash . The spider was abundant near Folsom State Prison in California , which had inspired Cash ’s vocal " Folsom Prison Blues " and where he perform and read a live album in 1968 . And the European wolf spider ’s darkcolorationreminded Hamilton of Cash ’s preference for head - to - toe calamitous attire , which had earned Cash the sobriquet , " The Man in Black . "
" It immediately fit , " Hamilton say .
But with 14 new spiders , the scientist had to follow up with a destiny more names , andA. johnnycashiwas the only oneinspired by a celebrity . " We tried to tie them into something about the specie , " Hamilton told Live Science .
Some were named in reference to where they were discover , likeA. saguaro(Saguaro National Park ) andA. superstitionense(the Superstition Mountains ) . Hamilton namedA. moellendorfiito commemorate wise man , pedagogue and fellow arachnologist Dave Moellendorf , who introduced Hamilton to tarantula distribution in Texas and support his other interest in the wanderer group . AndA. xwalxwal(pronounced “ hwal - hwal " ) got its name from the Holy Scripture for " a type of small wanderer " in the language of Cahuilla Native Americans .
" As a Native American myself — a appendage of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma — I do attempt to see for way of life to splice Native Americans into new coinage , if potential , " Hamilton said .
But finding new species is n’t just about scoring naming right , Hamilton said . " We do it because we know what we do . We really love the organism , and we need to know what ’s here on Earth and what their relationships are , " he said .
And if naming a young metal money after a celebrity brings some of that excitement about biodiversity and phylogenesis to a wider audience , then everybody win .
" It ’s a really important mechanism for reaching out to the populace and get them tortuous , " Hamilton said . " We want the public to love these new species , too . "
