Stuart John Longhorn

Phylogenetic analyses based on mitochondrial DNA have yielded widely differing relationships among members of the arthropod lineage Arachnida, depending on the nucleotide coding schemes and models of evolution used. We enhanced taxonomic coverage within the Arachnida greatly by sequencing seven new arachnid mitochondrial genomes from five orders. W...

The phylogenetic relationships among holometabolan insect orders remain poorly known, despite a wealth of previous studies. In particular, past attempts to clarify the sister-group of the enigmatic order Strepsiptera with rRNA genes have led to intense debate about long-branch attraction (the 'Strepsiptera problem'), without resolving the taxonomic...

CITES is an international agreement between governments to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival. Regarding spiders, all species listed in CITES are tarantulas. They are included in Appendix II, meaning that they are species that are not necessarily now threatened with extinction bu...

Illegal or unsustainable wildlife trade (IUWT) currently presents one of the most high-profile conservation challenges. There is no "one-size-fits-all" strategy, and a variety of disciplines and actors are needed for any counteractive approach to work effectively. Here, we detail common challenges faced when tackling IUWT, and we describe some avai...

Illegal or unsustainable wildlife trade (IUWT) currently presents one of the most high-profile conservation challenges. There is no "one-size-fits-all" strategy, and a variety of disciplines and actors are needed for any counteractive approach to work effectively. Here, we detail common challenges faced when tackling IUWT, and we describe some avai...

Illegal or unsustainable wildlife trade is growing at a global level, threatening the traded species and coexisting biota, and promoting the spread of invasive species. From the loss of ecosystem services to diseases transmitted from wildlife to humans, or connections with major organized crime networks and disruption of local to global economies,...

We report observations over several field seasons of egg and juvenile guarding by males of a Central American species of cosmetid harvestman (Opiliones: Cosmetidae), Cynorta bromeliaciaGoodnight & Goodnight, 1947. This represents only the second species of the family Cosmetidae that has been reported to exhibit paternal care. Importantly, we observ...

Kury A. B., Mendes A. C., Cardoso L., Kury M. S., Granado A. de A., Giribet G., Cruz-López J. A., Longhorn S. J. (2021). WCO: World Catalogue of Opiliones (version 2021-03-23). In: Catalogue of Life, et al. (2021). Species 2000 & ITIS Catalogue of Life, 2021-04-05. Digital resource at www.catalogueoflife.org. Species 2000: Naturalis, Leiden, the Ne...

The information in these Best Practice Guidelines has come from a variety of sources including an extensive literature review, the experience of the authors, as well as direct observations of Cyrtopholis femoralis in captivity and the wild. Much of the information on veterinary considerations for tarantula spiders (i.e. theraphosids) in general rel...

Molecular data are increasingly helping inform tarantula evolutionary history. This includes redefining taxonomic groups at many levels, from clarifying species limits and matching sexes to elucidating the boundaries of genera and higher taxonomic ranks. We initially overview early molecular studies with tarantulas, before more closely looking at l...

Montenegro et al. (2018) reported the theraphosid spider genus Homoeomma Ausserer, 1871 from Chile and described a new species of this genus with distinctive red and black colouration, naming it Homoeomma chilensis Montenegro & Aguilera, 2018. Soon after, Sherwood et al. (2018) described Homoeomma bicolor also from Chile having the same colouration...

Mygalomorph spiders of the family Theraphosidae, known to the broader public as tarantulas, are among the most recognizable arachnids on earth due to their large size and widespread distribution. Their use of urticating setae is a notable adaptation that has evolved exclusively in certain New World theraphosids. Thus far, the evolutionary history o...

A new species of theraphosid spider from Chile is described: Homoeomma bicolor sp. nov. Journal of the British Tarantula Society 33(3): 18-32.

A new species, Eucynorta rooneyi sp. nov. (Opiliones, Cosmetidae), is described from Parque Nacional Cusuco, Cortés, Honduras, a tropical montane cloud forest habitat. This is the thirty-fifth species of Eucynorta Roewer, 1912, and is characterized by the combination of three sexually dimorphic characters in males: enlarged chelicerae, some armatur...

The mygalomorph spiders in the family Theraphosidae, also known as "tarantulas", are one of the most famous and diverse groups of arachnids, but their evolutionary history remains poorly understood since morphological analysis have only provided mostly controversial results, and a broad molecular perspective has been lacking until now. In this stud...

We present a mtDNA gene tree of tarantula spiders (Araneae: Mygalomorphae: Theraphosidae) based on the mitochondrial 16S-tRNA (leu)-ND1 gene region as a promising initial molecular hypothesis to clarify the taxonomy of the largest subfamily, Theraphosinae. Many species of this New World subfamily are traded widely as exotic pets, yet few scientific...

Insecta consists of 29 living orders that are not equivalent by any criteria except taxonomic rank (Davis et al. 2010). Insects demonstrate the greatest biodiversity, accounting for over half of all described eukaryotes, approximately 1 million described species (Grimaldi and Engel 2005) and a global total of anywhere between 5 and 10 million speci...

The tarantula genus Sericopelma was originally defined based on male specimens, most notably lacking tibial spurs on leg I. Early female specimens were unrecognised as Sericopelma, and typically placed in Eurypelma – a dumping ground for problem specimens. The first females were only later recognised, but authors failed to adequately define female...

Three species of genus Diplocentrus are found in north-northwestern Honduras. These species represent the southern east limits of Diplocentrus' distribution. In recent years, a broad survey of arachnids in Honduras has yielded a collection of several specimens of an undescribed species from two islands in northern Honduras. This new species represe...

Morphological data traditionally group Tardigrada (water bears), Onychophora (velvet worms), and Arthropoda (e.g., spiders, insects, and their allies) into a monophyletic group of invertebrates with walking appendages known as the Panarthropoda. However, molecular data generally do not support the inclusion of tardigrades within the Panarthropoda,...

While a unique origin of the euarthropods is well established, relationships between the four euarthropod classes-chelicerates, myriapods, crustaceans and hexapods-are less clear. Unsolved questions include the position of myriapods, the monophyletic origin of chelicerates, and the validity of the close relationship of euarthropods to tardigrades a...

Pycnogonids, or sea spiders, are an enigmatic group of arthropods. Their unique anatomical features have made them difficult to place within the broader group Arthropoda. Most attempts to classify members of Pycnogonida have focused on utilizing these anatomical features to infer relatedness. Using data from mitochondrial genomes, we show that pycn...

Background / Purpose: The aim of this study was to uncover the true evolutionary relationship between the major sub classes within Arthropoda (Crustaceans, Insects, Myriapods, Chelicerates). We wanted to use a new independent source of phylogenetic data, to which we used miRNA conservation across the athropods.Traditionally, arthropods have been...

Tarantula spiders of the genus Brachypelma Simon 1891 are the only complete genus of arachnids protected from international trade under CITES law. To better understand the genetic cohesion of spiders within this genus, we evaluated multiple genetic fragments (totalling about 2200 bp) for their ability to recover population sub-structure among wild-...

Phylogenetic analysis of major groups of Metazoa using genomic data tends to recover the sister relationships of arthropods and chordates, contradicting the proposed Ecdysozoa (the molting animals), which group the arthropods together with nematodes and relatives. Ribosomal protein genes have been a major data source in phylogenomic studies because...

The Aquificales are prevalent members of the microbial communities inhabiting many marine and terrestrial hydrothermal systems. Numerous new strains were obtained from deep-sea and terrestrial hydrothermal systems. In order to resolve the phylogenetic relationships within this group, three different phylogenetic datasets were used, namely the 16S r...

Expressed sequence tag (EST) sequences can provide a wealth of data for phylogenetic and genomic studies, but the utility of these resources is restricted by poor taxonomic sampling. Here, we use small EST libraries (<1,000 clones) to generate phylogenetic markers across a broad sample of insects, focusing on the species-rich Coleoptera (beetles)....