Again, the point is, you're going on morphology (physical features), which is thankfully invalid when classifying organism's lineage. Acanthopis probably developed the vertical pupils because of its nocturnal activity patterns. If you'll notice, most highly nocturnal snakes have vertical pupils. As for the keeled scales, I'm not personally familiar with why they developed them, but they aren't the only elapid that did (see Hemachatus, or Rinkhal's cobras). So yes, while the similarities between death adders and many viperids are striking, it means absolutely nothing in regards to the organisms from which the Acanthopis genus evolved.
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Chance Duncan
www.rivervalleyexotics.com

[ Hide Replies ]

• Death Adders-Wrong Family? - WSHSmark, Sun Mar 5 00:00:37 2006
• Thank goodness for phylogenetics - Chance, Sun Mar 5 00:20:52 2006
• Yup... - SnakesAndStuff, Sun Mar 5 17:14:14 2006
• Convergent Evolution - Chance, Mon Mar 6 07:31:05 2006
• RE: Convergent Evolution - philodryas, Mon Mar 6 14:42:20 2006
• RE: Convergent Evolution - wshsmark, Mon Mar 6 19:16:01 2006
• RE: Thank goodness for phylogenetics - wshsmark, Mon Mar 6 19:09:23 2006
• RE: Thank goodness for phylogenetics - LarryF, Tue Mar 7 19:45:13 2006
• RE: Thank goodness for phylogenetics - wshsmark, Wed Mar 8 18:20:25 2006
• RE: Thank goodness for phylogenetics - Chance, Thu Mar 9 09:24:52 2006
• RE: Thank goodness for phylogenetics - billstevenson, Thu Mar 9 09:57:45 2006
• RE: Thank goodness for phylogenetics - WW, Fri Mar 10 01:17:40 2006
• Whew - Chance, Fri Mar 10 09:26:32 2006
• RE: Thank goodness for phylogenetics - wshsmark, Fri Mar 10 16:17:55 2006
• RE: Thank goodness for phylogenetics - Chance, Fri Mar 10 22:40:29 2006
• RE: Death Adders-Wrong Family? - phobos, Sun Mar 5 07:38:09 2006
• National Geographic.... - Senior, Tue Mar 7 11:25:32 2006
• RE: National Geographic.... - snake_girl85, Tue Mar 7 12:17:52 2006