ARMED AND DANGEROUS

cast, from left: Ventura, Shane Black, Schwarzenegger, Bill Duke, Weathers, Sonny Landham and Richard Chaves. Below: The movie’s alien above a diagram of the goblin spider species named for Ventura’s character.

one Predatoroonops from another (it takes a combination of chelicera and genital structures to distinguish a P. billy from a P. peterhalli, named for the actor inside the Predator suit), Brescovit and his colleagues include notes describing the inspiring character: P. blain “refers to Blain Cooper, played by Jesse Ventura in the original Predator; he often chews tobacco and wears a battered, old slouch hat.”

There was another reason behind the choice of names: A little Hollywood glamour might help raise awareness for forgotten and threatened species that live in jungles. “It shows how little we know of the fauna that inhabits the forest litter,” says Brescovit. “The destruction of these forests can help to extinguish small species and increase the loss of diversity. Like the species of this genus of spiders, there are millions of others, of several taxons, suffering the same danger, without being described for science.”

The process of naming has always had power, whether religious, as in the word that creates the world, or in its ability to create a legend, like the giant squid of sailors’ nightmares. With six movies in the Predator series (the latest opened on September 14), we now understand the fictional beast better than its real-life namesake, living only a few miles from São Paulo, one of the biggest cities in the Western Hemisphere.

“Almost nothing is known about the biology of Predatoroonops,” Brescovit says, “and they are difficult to keep in captivity.” In that way too, the goblin spiders are just like their namesake.