New tarantula named after Johnny Cash

Scientists scouring the fields of Folsom, California found a new kind of black tarantula which they have named after Johnny Cash, the American music legend who sang of the jailhouse blues.

The eight-legged creature named Aphonopelma johnnycashi is all black, the way Cash often dressed when he strummed his guitar and sang songs like The Man in Black and Folsom Prison Blues in his bass-baritone voice.

“I’m a huge Johnny Cash fan,” said Chris Hamilton, lead author of the study in the journal ZooKeys which identified the tarantula as one of 14 new spider species discovered in the south-western United States. “But I didn’t go into this searching for something I could name after him,” he told AFP.

Instead, Hamilton along with researchers at Auburn University and Millsaps College sought to closely examine tarantulas found throughout the southern United States, west of the Mississippi River. During a decade-long hunt, they collected nearly 3,000 specimens in multiple states. They found that the Johnny Cash spider was widespread, but had long been considered as another species, known as A. Iodius. “It is quite similar looking,” said Hamilton.

“When we really started collecting lots of specimens from across the distribution and looking closely at their morphology, DNA, and ecological variables, we saw that these specimens were unique and certainly warranted being separated as a separate species.”

Given the deep black colour of the males, combined with the location of the spider in Folsom, California — home to a state penitentiary where Cash performed for inmates in 1968 — “the name popped into my head. It just fit perfectly,” Hamilton said While researchers did not pick up the tarantula directly at or outside the prison, Hamilton said he “wouldn’t be surprised” if the tarantulas roamed free in the area. “They are found all over that area of Folsom, California and the western foothills of the Sierra Nevadas.”

Prior to this study, more than 50 different species of tarantulas were known in the United States, but they were poorly organised and some were misidentified as being different species when they were actually the same. Now, Hamilton and co-authors say there are 29 US tarantulas in the Aphonopelma genus, 14 of which are new to science.

“One of the most remarkable things that we discovered during this research was just how diverse the miniature Aphonopelma were in the US (and most likely Mexico too),” Hamilton said. “Eight of the new species belong to the miniature group,” which is believed to have shrunk in size over time, though experts do not yet understand why, he said.

In the meantime, researchers also have concerns about how climate change will impact America’s big and hairy spiders, possibly forcing some north into cooler climes or higher elevations that may not be as favou-rable as habitat.