Thank you Paalexan for your response, I will look into finding any python related papers, but I have a funny feeling I wont find them anyway. But a bigger thanks to Wulf for pretty much answering all of my questions in full and then some. On the topic of prehensile tails; I do have a Green Tree python and two Carpets. I also have a Blood. I would say the Blood python has the most prehensile of the tails; he can wrap the last inch of his tail around my pinky and take the life out of my finger in seconds flat. Then the carpets come in second, seeming to always use there tail to hook on to things, for support I would imagine. My GTP has a really prehensile tail, often curling the very tips of it. But it is very weak. She couldn't dangle from my arm like the carpets; she simply doesn't squeeze tight enough which leads to my next question; observations like this mean than any of the "prehensile tail" pythons have a prehensile tail to a varying degree, where some squeeze harder, or some just choose not to use their tail much at all. That isn't to say they couldn't; my blood rarely does this but every now and then he will use his tail to pretty much clamp on to my finger(s). So when my White Lip does this, she really reminds me of a carpet python; always wrapping her tail around my arm and anchoring on, observing with her head and free-form body movement. That's why I would have to say White lips have a prehensile tail. I really cant blame Hoser for his unsupported classifications; to me they are more like ideas as opposed to full term testing. That's what is going on in my mind lately; just small ideas that discern the interval between genus and species, and so on. I'm not here to change taxonomy or anyone's mind. But to me, if anything was deserving of its own isolated genus, I would say it should be the "python" Timoriensis. It includes the thick head shields that are always present on Scrubs of all kind (kinghorni. amethestyne). But to me, the infralabial pits resemble the Retic more than anything; it seems most members of Morelia have extremely heavy infralabial pits where the genus python has infralabial pits, but not as heavy, like the Timor python. I guess now could be a good time to ask what the scientific differences are between Morelia and Python are, but seeing as Walls synonomizes them, this could be up in the air until the world ends!



"Kluge 1993 based on a phylogenetic study figured out that albertisii is quite distinct from Liasis and therefore placed it into the newest available genus for this species and this was Leiopython Hubrecht 1879."



I could be overstaying my welcome here, but could you shed a little light as to what inferences were made by Kluge to distinguish Leiopython so far from Liasis? You have already answered all of my questions, so don't feel you have to waste your time. Just some food for thought.

PS-you said you would email me. My email account is no longer active so I got a new one: sealsandcrofts@hotmail.com. Sorry for the inconvenience if you already wrote to me.

From,

John
-----
"People change and your changing"

Seals and Crofts 1976

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