Hi,

I agree with what Wulf wrote.

Lesley Rawlings looked at pythonine molecular phylogeny in a PhD at the University of Adelaide and has subsequently published on the Morelia viridis 'complex' and on Liasis. However, the mitochondrial sequences she used turn out not to be adequate for more basal relationships, so most aspects of Kluge's phylogeny have not been tested yet. More molecular work is being done at UofA by Steve Donnellan and students, on the Morelia spilota group and other things.

A few years ago I added the Oligocene-Miocene fossil 'Montypythonoides riversleighensis' to Kluge's matrix and found it came out within Morelia, but did not change other major features of the cladogram (Aspidites still came out basal, even with revised outgroup relationships). I'm suspicious that this implies at least 6 ghost lineages in Australia over the last 25 million years, and it would make more sense of our (albeit meagre) fossil record if Python & Morelia are basal, Liasis (present in early Pliocene), Antaresia (Pleistocene, unpublished) and Aspidites (no fossil record) more derived and recent.

-----
John D. Scanlon
Riversleigh Fossil Centre
Outback at Isa
Mount Isa, Queensland, Australia
riversleigh@outbackatisa.com.au

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