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Posted by Chris Koester on December 30, 1998 at 10:47:23:
In Reply to: Lampropeltis triangulum and the definition of "species" posted by mike z on December 29, 1998 at 06:14:18:
: I am not a scientist so forgive me if this is "old hat" to the the rest of you. Also forgive spelling and phrasiology, it's early A.M. This is something which has bothered me for a while now and never had a forum to address it. The subject is Lampropeltis. More specifically, L. triangulum. To me, triangulum will always be the eastern milk [L.t. triangulum]. I find it very hard to consider most of the tri-colored "milks" of SW U.S., Mexico and C. America as having subspecies relationship. Besides appearence [morphology?], behaviour and location are so divergent it casts much doubt [in my mind] on the validity of subspecific designation for many types of milksnakes. I think part of the problem is that there is no adequate definition of what a species is. Before Darwin and Wallace, species were "immutable", well defined, rigid and bearing no close relationship to any other. Through much of the time following Darwin et al, a species was best seperated by the "mule" concept. If they interbreed and produce fertile off-spring, they're sub-species. It seems to me that designator is no longer valid. A case in point being the chichlid fish of the rift lakes in Africa. Dozens if not hundreds of "species" are found in a particular lakes which are clearly evolved from one or two species. New species keep turning up in places were to seperate species were formally isolated and then brought together by human activities. These new species would formally be considered hybrids but breed true, and if kept isolated, become a "new" species.
: I guess I'm rambling. Is there a good definition of species? Does anyone agree Lampropeltis is a mismash of seperate species and subspecies? Thanks, I fell much better know.
Snyder makes an excellent point, in fact the most important point, when he states "the concept is artificial". That is all that needs to be said. It seems that many people (in particular the academic types who are in charge of taxonomic bickering) are so married to the SPECIES concept that they simply cannot think outside of the proverbial box. You can hardly blame them, as this species concept has been pounded into them since the first time they opened a field guide or an encyclopedia, but the fact remains that the species concept is merely a tool used by humans to define a particular animal in question. It has absolutely no REAL value whatsoever.
Think of it this way. What makes a "species" a "species"? Is it colors? Habitat? Food? Behavior? Scale counts? NO. A "species" becomes a "species" only when someone CALLS it a "species" and gets enough other people to believe them. That's it. Period. Nature is not so simple and convenient as to lend itself to being easily understood. It is human nature to attempt to simplify and quantify things we cannot understand, so concepts like "species" arise. Species, in fact, have no absolute definition or value, so there is no absolute or definitive answer to any questions about them.
Chris Koester
