CK,

Need to be educated. What precisely in the definition of 'paraphyletic taxa' and what is or are the alternatives that the cladists embrace?



Secondly, you sort of lost me when you begin my mentioning that the southern and northern subclades are the same age. But then later indicate that the northern subclade likely budded off of the southern subclade which in turn would indicate that the northern subclade is younger than the parent southern subclade.



I thought I mentioned the following once before. I took a couple of side trips to view the habitat in all directions of Mt. Lassen and to make some searches. I confirmed that there is no break in suitable boa habitat anywhere in that region. Secondly, I collected two specimens northwest of Mt. Lassen in Shasta county near the junction of highways 89 and 299 near Burney, one specimen northeast of Mt. Lassen in western Lassen county along hwy 44, and two specimens southeast of Mt. Lassen near Deer Creek along hwy 36 in extreme northeastern Tehama county. Shortly thereafter, in my communication with Chris Feldman, I learned that he and another grad student at Utah St. U. had collected a number of other boas in the vicinity of Mt. Lassen in Plumas and Lassen counties and perhaps also in Shasta Co. that were for the CAS collection.



Thus about 2 years ago, I urged the current researcher to have all of those samples tested which he has done. It is from those specimens plus some others that were deposited at CAS from yet a forth county that have produced results that conflict with Javier's hypothesis that a break occurs in the distribution of the species and that the Northwestern and Sierra Nevada subclades are thus allopatric in distribution. As I have mentioned some time ago, biologically such a scenario makes no sense given the fact that suitable boa habitat occurs throughout that region.



Richard F. Hoyer

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