Car Communities: 4x4 | Acura | Alfa Romeo | Aston Martin | Audi | Beetle | Bentley | BMW | Camaro | Celica | Corvette | Challenger | Charger | Eclipse | Ferrari | Firebird | GTI | GTO | Honda | Hyundai | Infiniti |
| Jaguar | Jeep | Lamborghini | Lexus | Lotus | Maserati | Mazda | Mercedes | MG| Mini | Mustang | Oldsmobile | Pontiac | Porsche | RX-7/RX-8 | Saturn | Scion | SSR | Subaru | Toyota | Triumph | Viper | ZCar | |
|
|
| facebook - twitter |
kingsnake racing -
field outfitter shop -
reptile laws -
kingsnake shirts -
club.kingsnake -
advertising rates -
site news -
help -
contact
|
|
Weaned Rats $.59 , XL Rats $1.00, Medium Rabbits $5.00 At RODENTPRO.COM! Reptile & Amphibian Chat Sunday 9-11 PM Eastern - Click here! Check out our new Car Forums! - Want a FREE kingsnake T-Shirt? Click Here! |
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