Abstract
Many alien species have been introduced around the world as part of the pet trade, and some have escaped captivity and become invasive. In South Africa, many species of tarantula (Theraphosidae) are kept as pets. It is not known which species are traded, which are most popular, and whether their names are correctly applied. Online traders and physical pet stores were investigated between 2015 and 2016 to determine the extent or size of trade, species composition, most popular species, and their invasion history elsewhere. In total, 36 specimens, three individuals from 12 putative species, were also purchased for DNA barcoding targeting the COI gene region to quantify the accuracy of tarantula identification by traders. In total, 195 tarantula species were advertised for sale, and the most popular species were Brachypelma albopilosum Valerio, 1980 (n = 199), B. vagans Ausserer, 1875 (n = 132), and Grammostola rosea Walckenaer, 1837 (n = 120). The composition of shared species differed between the sources and most of the species were advertised online. Only one of the popular species, B. vagans, has been recorded as being invasive elsewhere. Only 36% of the barcoded specimens matched existing barcodes in online repositories that had the same species name. The three individuals from 12 putative species were not in the same terminal clade as those of conspecifics in the Barcode of Life Data System (BOLD) and the NCBI GenBank reference sequences. A large proportion of the known tarantula species are traded in South Africa and must be included in management and risk assessments to avoid potential invasions.
Highlights
Keeping wild animals as pets has become a popular hobby that has increased around the world (Kopecký et al 2013; Mori et al 2017)
The aims of this study were to: 1) determine the size of the trade in tarantulas in the South African pet trade and whether the species composition differs among trade types; 2) determine which species are most commonly available; 3) determine whether any species available have a history of invasion elsewhere; 4) determine whether there is a relationship between availability and selling price; and, 5) quantify the accuracy of identification of a sample of tarantulas in the pet trade
At least 195 species of tarantula are sold in South Africa, which represents 20% of the known tarantula species worldwide (Gallon 2000)
Summary
Keeping wild animals as pets has become a popular hobby that has increased around the world (Kopecký et al 2013; Mori et al 2017) Many of these species are traded for entertainment (da Nóbrega Alves et al 2010), profit (van Wilgen et al 2008; Mori et al 2017) and ornamentation (Murray et al 2012; Kopecký et al 2013). Some of the species damage ecosystems (Martin and Coetzee 2011), compete for resources with native species (Mori et al 2017; Nunes et al 2017) and carry pathogens that threaten public health (Travis et al 2011) and agriculture (Witmer and Hall 2011; Gibson and Yong 2017), and cause biodiversity loss (Engeman et al 2007; Faulkes 2010)
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