Talk:Heptathela

Thela
Any idea what the thela ending means in Greek? and whey they're call hepta-thela? --Sarefo 05:48, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Here's the answer I got from a Classicist: "I don't have a good answer to this. First, there is no guarantee that the whole word is Greek-based. It seems pretty certain that 'hepta' is indeed Greek 'seven'. But it would not be impossible for a coiner of terminology to combine that with another non-Greek word. But let's assume that the whole is Greek-based. The word could be variously analyzed. It could be 'hepta-thela', so we would need to think about 'thela'; or it could be 'hept-athela' (as in, for example, hept-athlon, 'seven contests', or hept-agon, 'seven angles'; here, obviously, the final alpha of hepta drops before the next vowel). The 'e' in that part could represent an original epsilon or eta. So there would be four possible roots: thel, thEl, athel, and athEl (using E for eta). None of those seems very promising to me. There is the common verb thelo, 'I wish'; but that doesn't seem to get us anywhere. There is a word thElE, 'teat, nipple', which is fairly rare, but related to the common word thElus, 'female'. I don't really suppose your spider has seven nipples. But could there be seven nipple-like structures characterizing this genus? (I notice that Liddell and Scott lists a late [third-century] metaphorical use of thElE as 'head of a pole'.) (Another avenue would be to consider -ela as a suffix; but I don't see how to go anywhere with that.)" What does a spider have seven of? Spinerettes? Segmental plates? What does "Mesothelae" mean? Belonging among those having their thele in the middle, I presume. That would point to spinerettes, but that's just a guess. P0M 01:20, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

There is also the family Hexathelidae, that's why i'm pretty certain it means 'seven'. Interesting, thx. I'll check out if I can find out more. --Sarefo 02:03, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/dspace/bitstream/2246/5262/1/N2781.pdf Platnick has a clear mention of seven spinnerets being characteristic. P0M 17:51, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Change of circumscription
Since most of the species in this genus in 2015 (23 of the then 33) have been moved to other genera, general statements about the genus in the literature prior to this date have to be treated with great caution. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:40, 1 April 2017 (UTC)