>>CK,

>>The current researcher mentioned something to the effect that the relationship between the Rosy, Calabar, and Rubber Boa are different from what Javier portrayed them in his mtDNA paper.

>>

>>Also, what information tells you that it was the Rosy Boa that evolved from the Rubber Boa and not the reverse? And isn't there the possibility that both species arose from some common ancestor?>>



Here is additional information that would suggest the Rosy Boa evolved (or budded) from the rubber boa. I found the following paper regarding a mtDNA analysis of the Rosy Boa



http://www.cnah.org/pdf_files/929.pdf



A quote: "The average sequence divergence (uncorrected) between all L. trivirgata haplotypes is 3.3%, (ranging from 0.09% to 6.3%). Sequence divergence estimates between L. trivirgata and its nearest relative (C. bottae) range from 14.4% to 16.7%."



mtDNA data therefore shows that there is less divergence within L. trivirgata than there is between L. trivirgata and C. bottae. It means L. trivirgata is considerably younger as a species than the common ancestor of L. trivirgata and C. bottae. If C. bottae had budded from (or evolved from an isolated population of) L. trivirgata, we would expect the many populations of L. trivirgata to have greater sequence divergence than the common ancestor of L. trivirgata and C. bottae. L. trivirgata is relatively young as a species, therefore it could not have been ancestral to C. bottae.



A similar situation exists in the y chromosome sequences of human beings. There is much greater sequence divergence among the human populations in Africa than there are sequence divergences among all of the world's non-African human populations. It means all of the World's non-African populations share a more recent common ancestor with each other than the many populations of Africans do with each other and that the non-African populations originated in Africa.

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