"I don't think there's many herpers thinking zonata isn't a montane snake. Maybe conspicillatus should be considered montane for similar reasons.".....



Yeah, I agree, and it seems that the semantic side of montane is pretty moot when you consider most of Japan, making elevation and latitude observations more important. Off the top of my head, I can't think of a snake species on the main islands that isn't adapted to elevation, both high and low, they don't have anywhere else to go....I should have been a poet...LOL.

You should definitely download google earth....swing the globe around to Buzen, Japan (there's a convenient search feature), and just south of there you'll see the fingers of foothills where I found two conspics.

This is a bit off topic, but I have to wonder if conspics, in days long gone, weren't found in the limited flatlands down to sea level. The flatlands are obviously prime real estate in rugged terrain, and the Tokyo area is a perfect example of that. I've seen, from the air, damn near all of the southern coastline of Japan, with the exception of Hokkaido, and those flat places are most definitely well used. Now for a snake like quadrivirgata, that's probably good, but conspics seemingly don't fare too well in mass agricultural areas.

Shane


-----
Shane's Herp Lifelist

http://www.geocities.com/shane77@sbcglobal.net/my_page.html

[ Show Entire Thread ]