The Species Dating Game

ByCarl Zimmer
August 07, 2008

Well, Jason Bond fared pretty well on the Colbert Report, as Colbert picked a spider to be named after him. (Actually, the species name was already in the bag–or rather, in press.)

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Spida of Love – Jason Bond www.colbertnation.com

Colbert cracked a bit about how his species is distinguished by its mating claspers (who hasn’t made a mating clasper joke?), but the fact is that Bond used a much more complex series of steps to decide how many species this group of trapdoor spiders belong to. This is why Bond’s work is important–it’s part of a movement towards making hypotheses about species more explicit and more systematic. Here’s the flow chart Bond used to end up with Aptostichus stephencolberti…(reproduced from the full-sized image here)

Spider species

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