Talk:Heptathela

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[edit] 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)