It is confirmed! – Issue #73

Hello Explorer,
I have great news to share! Prof Charles Haddad has confirmed that the Tanzania sp. Jumping spider I found, is indeed a new species after he inspected it under the microscope!
The main question I get at this stage is: Does that mean I get to name the species? To put it bluntly, No. There is a big difference between discovering a species and naming a species. The difference is that anyone can discover a new species, but only a Taxonomist can name a new species. The reason for this is that you need to know how to describe a species scientifically accurate, and correctly for the name to be accepted.
A taxonomist is someone who specializes in classifying and sorting information based on established systems. Simply put, they sort organisms based on their characteristics and patterns.
On the other hand, before the species can be described, at least a single female is needed to do so. What does that mean for me? More hours in the bush to try and locate a female of the same species to enable description.
I asked Dr. Ian Engelbrecht for some clarity on this, as I am a classical entomologist and not a taxonomist, so I am not as clued up with species description and such. Dr Engelbrecht explained that ideally one would like at least six male and six female specimens to accurately describe the species, but this is often not feasible. The reason for the six of each, is that within the description, one needs to try and describe all the variation within the species. To explain this clearly, imagine we take a random human and describe the entire species from it. That would be a very limited and inadequate description of humans! Though spiders do not have such great variation, you will still need multiple specimens to describe the species as accurately as possible with as much of its variation as possible.

If you would like to send me a message with your answers, feel free to do so on Instagram @abugmanslife or via email to [email protected].