From what I have been told, that would reveal very little, like nothing. If they were naturally occurring, you would need dna from their parents etc to say anything.

Again from what I am told, MTdna is still in a unsettled state. You can take different dna in a single snake and come up with different relationships.

Color and pattern are not good genes to work with as they change so quickly and not necessarily tied to genes. An example would be, a clone does not have to have the same color as the parent.

Again, I am no expert what have questioned a number of people who are.

Our problem and surely Budro's is, we name them by what they look like, not considering important characters like scale counts, structure, and recently Mtdna. Even band count is more important then color. That can show a cline from one area to another. Color, not so much.

There are so many species of snakes that express melanism, such as hognose, gardersnakes, rattlesnakes, coachwhips, pines, etc and in all cases does not make them separate species. These have different degrees of expression, from being rare to being common. Melanism seems to compete well with normal patterned snakes.

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