"We have a similar situation here in California. The conservative eastern establishment refuses to admit that we have

many unrecognized species here resulting from our highly varied topography/climate and geological history."



Me:

What conservative eastern establishment? Many of those cladists in the American Museum of Natural History in New York are anything but "conservative." In fact, many of the so-called "unrecognized species" here in California are recognized on the basis of a new species concept, the so-called "evolutionary species concept," promulgated by cladistic herpetologists from the east.



Some of the Californian "species" such as "Ambystoma californiense", is actually a subspecies of Ambystoma tigrinum. Morphologically it is close to the A. t. mavortium-tigrinum-velasci complex. Its mating behavior is indistinguishable from that of A. t. tigrinum according to S. Arnold, who studied them both. Introduced tiger salamanders from the east interbreed freely with those in Monterey County, Calif., according to R. Stebbins' latest field guide. I think those cladists in the east who promulgated the so-called "evolutionary species concept" would approve the recognition of californiense as a distinct species from A. tigrinum.



Other so called species in California are little more than slightly different but disjunct populations with close, probably conspecific relatives to the east. Many cladists will have little problem recognizing disjunct populations as different species, and these cladists are scattered all across the country. It may be true that many of the vocal opponents of cladism are from the eastern part of the country, but there is no shortage of hard line cladists from the east.

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