ORTIZ MARTINEZ David, Cuba

Support via: 2007 ext call; 2008 ext call

Abstract (taken from original proposal)

Despite of being a charismatic group of animals under threat of illegal trade, little is known about taxonomy, ecology and conservation status of mygalomorph spiders from West Indies, Central America and northern South America. Most known species were described during taxonomy early times in hard to attain publications. Type specimens, mostly deposited in European collections, have not been reexamined and/or redescribed, so most species are impossible to recognize in the field. Furthermore, a huge part of the extant diversity remains unknown to science. This project pretends to taxonomically revise this largely neglected group, firstly clarifying the identity of described taxa and secondly describing a significant number of new taxa. In a previous visit to Belgium I examined about half of the type specimens and copy almost all the concerning taxonomic bibliography of the XIX Century. Results of this project will be the base of my Master’s and PhD’s theses.

Training location: Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels.

Browse through Mr. Ortiz-Martinez GTI report to learn more about his training.