I only wish you faught this hard to breed true species/ subspecies as described by taxonomy



Taxonomy is a man made construct, and it's a man made construct that changes.



It use to be phenotype that differentiated species and subspecies. Now it seems to primarily be mtDNA.



There are numerous cases where snakes of different phenotype are found via mtDNA to be the same thing. There are also cases where snakes of identical phenotype via mtDNA are found to be different.



Earlier this year - a paper was published suggesting that Rosy Boas in Southern California need a further split - based solely on mtDNA. If that holds up, there will be a lot of Rosy Boas in the trade that people use to think were pure that now are crosses. All because the human defined construct of how the species is split up changed.



L getula, as I'm sure you are well aware, was defined back before the current trend of using mtDNA. What currently is L g californiae use to be 5 different subspecies - including the two in Baja, Yuma phase, banded and striped.



It would not surprise me one bit if they found the baja populations actually are not pure L g californiae but are in fact a large natural intergrade zone that has since had its gene flow from nigrita split off. If that is the case, then anyone who has bred a conjuncta or nitida to a Cal King currently thinking they are pure will actually have produced a cross.



Our man made constructs are not perfect and they do change.



Purity really means absolutely nothing if it is not a locality animal, what is pure today could very easily be a cross tomorrow as our constructs change. And our constructs undoubtedly will change multiple times in the future.
-----
I decided my old sig was too big.

[ Show Entire Thread ]