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Posted by troy h on November 25, 2002 at 12:24:54:
In Reply to: New Snake Discovered in the U.S. posted by TW Taggart on November 23, 2002 at 18:40:41:
these populations of Elaphe guttata have been described by a variety of names over the years - what they are (in all likelihood) is an intergrade population between corns & emoryi. I wonder how Burbink treats the identical snakes found in East Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, and Illinois?
Smith, Chiszar, et. al. described these snakes as Elaphe guttata meahlmorum
Vaughan, Dixon, and Thomas restricted meahlmorum to populations in south Texas and described these snakes (east Texas populations only) as the "brown phase" of the cornsnake.
Collins has long considered them to be E. emoryi (incidentally E. emoryi was never elevated to full species status by actual research . . . Collins just pubbed it in Herp Review in his paper on (mis)applications of the Evolutionary Species concept)
as far as this new "species" goes, i can show you the intergrade zone. the specimens are available in the major universities.
sadly, what this is is an attempt to tie Slowinski's name to the nomenclature of a "species" . . . in my eyes, its unfortunate that his name be tied to such a faulty bit of research.
troy
