Mark:

I was reading through the posts from last month and thought of something to add to your post "Are you warming up to Scotophis as the Latin genus moniker for the woodland rat snakes?
I was barely able to stomach Pantherophis!!".

Here's my appraisal as a simple hobbyist:


Ratsnake Taxonomy

Those who view ratsnakes as just fun and games
Never get riled about kinship and names.
A ratsnake’s a ratsnake as far as they care
As long as it eats mice and its sidewall is square.
They want it to feed and they want it alive
They want it to breed and the hatchlings to thrive.
They want it to drink from a round plastic bowl
And they’d like it to look like a barbershop pole.
These things mean the world to the average hobbyist
But they mean less than nothing to the serious taxonomist.

Where the one sees an orange phase E. lindheimeri
The other sneers caustically and opines contrary.
“Why that’s nothing at all but a plain obsoletus
And your naming convention is plain obsolete t’us.
No one says Elaphe for those anymore
That kind of ignorance is surely a bore”.
Pantherophis was trendy way back in ‘05
But Scotophis replaced it and made it seem jive.
Now all of the cladists who hang in the ‘hood
Use Pituophis for ratsnake and say it is good.

If a snake-guy speaks up and states his objection
He’s sure to be given a long-winded correction.
In a flash he’s beseiged by a swarm of detractors
Clarifying his errors with technical factors.
Similarities of structure, lifestyle and form
Are swept to the side with derision and scorn.
“Sure they both look the same and feed just alike
But that argument already has come down the pike.
We’ve heard it before and we certainly don’t buy it.
We aren’t convinced so don’t even try it.
Just look at this cladogram in plain black and white
The branches are solid, the numbers are tight.
Those families are separated by three different levels
They’re as different as if they were angels and devils”.

So thoroughly chastened the snake-guy retreats
He can’t speak the language, it’s too hard a feat.
If he happens to have a background in science
He may pick up some books as an act of defiance.
He’ll read about cloning DNA mitochondrial
He’ll stay up all night behaving insomnial.

Eventually he’ll be able to the read through this stuff
And know what is solid and know what is guff.
And what does he find when he’s gotten this far?
That a bunch of what’s out there is wholly sub-par.
The probability values for the branches as shown
Would get you thrown out if they were odds on a loan.
Thirty percent or per cent forty two
Is hardly enough to define as a clue.
Instead of using these studies it always prevails
To select for the truth by a flip heads or tails.

And then if you read what the science types say
About these same studies, the yea and the nay,
You’ll soon come to see that it’s not quite transparent
As to what’s still a guess and what’s most apparent.

“What you take for kinship is only convergence”
“Have you gone mad! That’s dispersive divergence.
They’ll point out a clear case of symplesiomorphy
Or debate homoplasy versus synapomorphy.
They’ll argue for Bayesian versus strict parsimony
They’ll say that the Cladists are full of baloney.

They’ll argue these points till the cows have come home
And when all’s said and done they’ll have written a tome.
But the answer of whether they’re Elaphe or not
Will have advanced back or forth not even a jot.

So my advice to the hobbyist there scratching his head
Is call them whatever you want without dread.
The eggheads have pondered and tested and claimed
But a ratsnake’s a ratsnake whatever it’s named.


Regards
John

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