`I thought it was Elaphe slowinskii, full species, not a subspecies of corn snake.'



Burbrink described it as a new species. Burbrink's full of it, though, so I doubt many other people will consider it a separate species. I'd guess most people will call it a subspecies.



`Also, I was unaware that Pantherophis is now deemed correct? Has this taken over Elaphe completely? Or just American??'



Utiger et al. (and there's a rather pointlessly-involved discussion of this somewhere below in the forum) assigned Elaphe obsoleta, Elaphe guttata (I don't remember offhand if they viewed emoryi or slowinskii as separate species, though I'd guess not), Elaphe vulpina, and Elaphe bairdi to Pantherophis. Elaphe flavirufa was assigned to the monotypic genus Pseudelaphe.



As has been mentioned in previous discussions, what's correct depends to some extent on who you ask. I think Pantherophis will be widely accepted, though.



Patrick Alexander

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