What is this thing?

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Anyone know what kind of spider this is? (feddit.nl)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/whatisthisthing

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Found this spider in Assen(NL) can anyone identify it?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Or Araniella cucurbitina in English.

That's actually the taxonomic name so it's good in all languages.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

I was hinting more at the Wikipedia page language, but yeah. It's the scientific name, so good in most if not all languages.

Edited.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

All good. "common names" can actually be incredibly tricky and sometimes they even differ by just geography but suddenly mean a totally different spider. Like "house spiders" mean different spiders in the US or Europe. That's why the taxanomic names are really important.

Another very good example is "daddy long legs" which can mean "cellar spider", "harvestmen" or "crane fly". Entire different families of animals even.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Ah. My favorite Henry Ford quote:

The taxonomist can have the name in any language they want, so long as it is Latin.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

That is very true in the mammals. But with athropods things really get crazy as there are sooo many. I linked a video in another comment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKRW1zgkCVc