New spider name salutes Native American ties

This is a female Cryptocteniza kawtak.
(Photo courtesy Jason Bond, UC Davis) 

Contest inspired by UC Davis professor's rare discovery draws 200-plus entries

By Debbie Arrington

A once-in-a-lifetime discovery now has a name: Cryptocteniza kawtak.

That blend of Latin and Mutsun was the winning entry in a naming contest 

for a new species of trapdoor spider, discovered by UC Davis professor Jason Bond.

Bond found the unusual spider, described as “a living fossil” for its throwback ancestry, 

on a sandy beach at Moss Landing State Park near Monterey. 

During the pandemic, he held an online naming contest and received more than 200 suggestions

 from around the globe.

“There were a lot of names proposed,” Bond told Bug Squad blogger Kathy Keatley Garvey. 

“They fell into a few general categories: 

1) named after me – people apparently like my last name and the association with the James Bond 

character but naming a spider after one’s self would not be good form; 

2) Native Americans, particularly California indigenous groups; 

3) location (Moss Landing) and/or physical description; and

 4) names related to the recent Black Lives Matter protests and movement and George Floyd.”

Announced Monday, the winning entry -- “kawtak” -- fell into groups two and three. 

The name comes from the Mutsun word for “seashore.” 

The Mutsun tribe lived near Mission San Juan Bautista, not far from Moss Landing.

“I have also named other California spiders in the past for Native American groups and

feel strongly that such new species names are an elegant connection to California, to the

 land and its native people,” Bond said.

The name was submitted by entomologist and UC Davis alumna Kirsten Pearsons, 

who just received her doctorate at Penn State. 

In her submission, she wrote: “Kawtak means ‘on the seashore' in the Mutsun language. 

Before the Spanish arrived, the Moss Landing area was home to the Mutsun people. Today,
tribal members and linguists are working to revitalize the Mutsun language, so this could

be a small way to recognize this effort and to recognize their ties to the Monterey Bay. 

"Also, it just sounds nice following the genus name!”

Bond first discovered the new spider (a female) in 1997, but it took until 2019 for him to
 find a male and verify a separate species. 

With a team of UC Davis colleagues, Bond wrote a scientific journal article on the spider find, 

its evolution and discovery, crediting Pearsons with the name.

Read more: https://bit.ly/2Ggm7RE.

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