It seems that quite often that someone finds themselves with a specimen that needs to be identified, which usually tends to be alot more difficult than one would think. turns out identifying a t from scratch is not just a case of ''mik en druk''.
So my thoughts are that since there are alot of people with alot of knowledge on this topic on this forum, maybe a group effort could be orchestrated as to produce a dichotomous specifically for tarantulas. a Member with an unknown specimen could then just follow the key comparing characteristics and figure out what t he has. It seems like it would cut down on the number of ''identify this t please'' posts.
just some thoughts.

I've added a silly example just to illustrate the mechanics behind a dicotomous key

Good idea, but it will probably be a 50 page key.
Not sure anyone with the knowledge has that amount of time.
It would also need to include smaller details like spermathecae shape or amount of hairs on the inside of the chelicerae (As an example), so would be quite a job to get it done.

yeah I figured that much. Maybe instead of one big key, several shorter ones could be made, like lets say for identification of a specie within a genus, eg you have a avic your not sure of, you open the key for avics, compare a characteristics and then there you go you know the specie. Obviously as you mentioned producing such a key would thake alot of time and labour, but the end results would be pretty handy.

The next problem I see is that in SA we don't have the majority of the species, so would be difficult.
Best would be to have a look at Duke's thread with scientific papers. Don't have time right now, but sure there are papers in there for most genera identification. Maybe have a read through there to see if there identification papers.
www.tarantulas.co.za/forum/know-your-tar...ght-reading-material

Really good idea but like Cerat said would take a lot of work. I would gladly write a web app for the forum that could filter trough sets and leave you with some hits. But its gathering the info that would be the problem.

shot. will do man. I'll read up a bit on the topic, and then we'll see if we can make it happen.
I'm not giving up on this idea yet haha