>>Could someone please enlighten me as to the basis for the proposed change to Pantherophis, So far all I can find are vituperative personal attacks with no discussion of the wherefore and why. Is the proposal based on morphology, sequencing behavior or what? While a relatively new addition to the herp world I am a familiar with cladistics and taxonomy in general.

The basis is a paper by Utiger et al in Russian Journal of herpetology, in which the genus Elaphe was partitioned into multiple genera based on mtDNA sequences and adjunt morphological characters. Elaphe was shown to be paraphyletic with repect to the entire North American lampropeltine group, i.e., Lampropeltis, Pituophis, Arizona and N. America "Elaphe".

The non-monophyly of Elaphe was hardly a state secret, there have been other studies of the lampropeltinine group which have shown Elaphe to be non-monophyletic. Utiger et al. were the first to draw the nomenclatural consequences. E-mail me if you want a PDF of the paper.

The vituperative nature of the discussion here is largely due to one individual trying to drag us kicking and screaming back into the 1950's.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Wolfgang
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