Posted by:
wulf
at Sun Sep 21 16:41:23 2003 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by wulf ]
Hi John 
First, I would like to express my frustration with the lack of explanations available to average hobbyists such as myself. I have been trying to discover what genus names such as "Liasis" and "Morelia" actually mean. I know that latin is a dead language, so there would be no such thing as latin jargon. I have stumbled upon Latin->English dictionaries, and have had no luck discovering what genus titles mean.
Well, Liasis as well as Morelia are generic names without a latin root. They mean nothing in a linguistic sence.
What is in a genus? I find it hard to believe that every race of animal isn't deserving of its own genus, considering it must have anatomical differences in order to be a separate species in the first place.
I asked this question a while ago on the old tax-forum...
http://forum.kingsnake.com/tax/messages/1608.html
There are some species concepts around....
In Jerry Walls "Pythons of the World" book it describes the Liasis genus is a rather nebulous fashion;
"One (rarely two) enlarged loreal; head shields fully developed; supralabial row with no to three sensory pits, no more than one or two deep; glossy brown with or without small pale spots or ringed black and orange; tail not prehensile.............Liasis"
Well Jerry doesn't stick to the current taxonomy but does his own thing more or less. He mentioned it at the beginning... So don't rely on this book for taxonomic names!
I can agree with much of this description as I have yet to
handle any member of Liasis that poses any supralabial pits. One point I would have to disagree with highly is the idea that members of Liasis do not have prehensile tails.
Well, Liasis Gray 1842 is a sort of nasty genus as Gray failed to designate a type species back in 1842. A very short summery of what happend (sorry, might be bad english):
The genus Liasis introduced by Gray 1842 and in which Peters & Doria placed Liasis albertisii Peters & Doria, 1878 has led to high taxonomic confusion in the past. Gray introduced the generic name Liasis Gray for three species Liasis childreni (Gray 1842:44), Liasis olivacea (Gray, 1842:45) and Liasis amethistinus (Schneider, 1801:254) without designating a type species. In fact it has turned out that Gray actually described the species later known as Liasis mackloti Dumeril & Bibron rather than ‘Boa amethistina’ Schneider (McDowell 1975:31, footnote; Stimson & McDowell, 1986:331). Desmarest later designated ‘Boa amethistina’ Schneider (1846:337) as the type species of Liasis. In 1849 Gray subdivided Liasis into three sub-genera, namely Liasis (containing only L. childreni Gray), Simalia (Gray 1849:91-92) containing L. amethystinus and L. mackloti (Dumeril & Bibron) and Lisalia (Gray 1849:92-93) , containing only L. olivaceus Gray). Obviously most of the subsequent workers have overlooked Desmarest’s type designation for Liasis as i.e. McDowell (1975) stated “The Subgenus Liasis considered monotypic, for L. childreni Gray; this would appear to designate that species as the type” (McDowell, 1975:31).
As I reached for my White Lip tonight, he wrapped tightly around my arm. As she slithered down, her tail was tightly anchored around my arm with such force as to let her entire body go, dangling its entire body. If that isn't considered prehensile, what is?
No, John, it isn't! Have a look at M. viridis or M. nauta and you'll know what prehensile is Also look at carpet pythons.
Would this be the main reason why White Lips at one point had "Leiopython" to themselves? If so, why move it into Liasis territory?
Kluge 1993 based on a phylogenetic study figured out that albertisii is quite distinct from Liasis and therefor placed it into the newest available genus for this species and this was Leiopython Hubrecht 1879.
There seems to be a lot of people giving scientific names out like Halloween candy. And that's fine. But in what publication or book can this be broken down to a rational and DETAILED explanation? The more I read, it seems the more holes I find. Looking foward to hearing some ideas/answers.
I'll send you an email that might clear up all these questions more carefully.
Cheers,
Wulf
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http://www.leiopython.de ,
http://www.herpers-digest.com
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RE: Python classification - wulf, Sun Sep 21 16:41:23 2003