a point of view or what does it take to be...?

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Posted by Wulf on February 14, 2003 at 05:28:45:

Hi folks,

thanks to Linnaeus we today have a quite well organized system in systematics. But on the other hand there are some more or less uncertain definitions of what makes a genus, a species, a subspecies or only a race.

As for the family of pythonidae i.e. Stimson & Underwood (1990) lumped together almost (except Aspidites) all indo-australian pythons into the genus Morelia but this genus already had a key as well as others genus did. Other taxonomists seperated them again and Kluge (1993) for instance ignored the validity of Liasis fuscus but placed him into Liasis mackloti as a race (if you have a closer look at these two you'll find out a lot of differences, including locality).

So there were different points of view and I guess all of them somehow had their right.

But what makes specimen to a subspecies? Is it only a perhaps remote locality where it occurs or maybe a slightly different morphology (i.e. a second pair of parietals or a higher ventral or subcaudal scale count; +-2 or 3 scales) ?
What is a race worth in taxonomy and how would one describe it?

What is a key to a genus worth when specimen placed into this genus all show character sets that should be abesent in order to the key?

Is an posterior parietal always a posterior parietal or could it be just a enlarged temporal scale?

As WW already said..."Taxonomy is a matter of evidence...". But what is evident when things chance?

I'm looking forward to your answers ;-)

Cheers,
Wulf

Follow Ups:

Re: a point of view or what does it take to be...? vvvddd 02/19/03 (0)
Re: a point of view or what does it take to be...? paalexan 02/18/03 (0)
Re: a point of view or what does it take to be...? emoneill 02/16/03 (8)
- Re: a point of view or what does it take to be...? ScottThomson 03/06/03 (0)
- Re: a point of view or what does it take to be...? marcus1 02/18/03 (1)
  - Brooks and McLennan 2002 emoneill 02/22/03 (0)
- that's the best way to kill this forum; great! NP steno 02/16/03 (4)
  - Re: that's the best way to kill this forum; great! NP Wulf 02/16/03 (3)
    - Not trying to kill the forum. emoneill 02/17/03 (2)
      - Re: Not trying to kill the forum. steno 02/17/03 (1)
        
        Re: Not trying to kill the forum. Wulf 02/17/03 (0)