Flag for Taxon: Black Cobweb Spider (Steatoda capensis)
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| kschnei | Black Cobweb Spider (Steatoda capensis) |
The common name "Brown House Spider" is vague and too tempting for many North American observers, who ID this species regularly where it doesn't exist. |
Oct. 12, 2019 17:17:52 +0000 | kschnei |
Comments
Yes, that may be part of the problem. But I also think people literally see a brown spider in their house and type in this as an ID sometimes as well? Do a search for S. capensis in the US - there are 150 observations and 5 are even Research Grade - all are wrong as far as I know.
OK - I fixed the RG ones now anyway...
The ultimate question, though, is within its range, is Brown House Spider commonly used for Steatoda capensis? If you type in "brown spider" you get lots of suggestions, so I'm sure the same problem exists for those other species.
Cleanup is done. Now we only have to keep up.
Couldn't we just change the common name to "Black cobweb spider" (which is another common name for Steatoda capensis), or remove the common name entirely? That seems like it would fix the problem.
Okay, I've updated the common names to make Black Cobweb Spider the default everywhere but New Zealand. Let me know if this works, or if there should be modifications for various localities.
I don't think removing the common name entirely is really an option because it's a name non-scientists should recognize, that exists.
Thanks - let's see if that helps - I had several more S. capensis IDs show up in CA today after fixing a slew of them recently...
The common names seem to have been changed, can this be resolved?
Sure - the common name still is inappropriate and useless, but it might be better. Black Cobweb Spider describes all kinds of spiders, most notably Latrodectus.
Perhaps it is getting confused with https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/61997-Steatoda-grossa, which also has the common name Brown House Spider?