"`In some of these papers, the authors merely assume that Elaphe is polyphyletic.'



You wrote:

Which papers? And on what grounds do you conclude that it is merely assumption?



My response:

Tong et al. (2002, Acta Zoological Sinica) write in their abstract: "seven species of Elaphe form a common branch before they cluster with other genera, contrary to Dessauer's assumption of the polyphyletic origin of this genus"

I have not read Dessauer's paper, but Tong et al. have. They claim that Dessauer only assumed that Elaphe is polyphyletic. I have read Dowling's paper. He also presents no evidence that Elaphe is polyphyletic but thinks that it may be.



You wrote:

Which suggests that we should just ignore the Acta Zoologica Sinica paper and only worry about the Lopez and Maxson paper.



My response:

Since your library does not subscribe to this journal, you would probably have to ignore it. I have not been able to find this paper even though the library has it; it is missing from the shelf. I will not ignore it. It is an independent study that corroborates both Lopez and Maxson and Utiger et al.



You wrote:

BTW, to what morphological similarities are you referring?



My response:

Similarities in scalation, in body proportions, in hemipenial morphology and in microdermatoglyphics of the dorsal scales.



You wrote:

I haven't ever seen the idea that all paraphyletic taxa are inherently valid and cannot be modified put forth.



My response:

As I said, paraphyletic taxa may be splintered if some members of such taxa can be shown to be morphologically disparate. For example, I am open to the idea that some species may be removed from the paraphyletic Elaphe on morphological grounds. So far you have provided no evidence that Utiger et al. resurrected numerous old names on the basis of morphological disparity.

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