What is a population though? Also isn't the usfulness mtDNA limited by the fact that it is only found in females and usually it is the males that migrate in while females usually stay close to where they were born?

I always look at several factors when I decide to add something to a locality project. One would be the habit, are there pysical barriers that would prevent or inhibit geneflow? The next would be the looks of the snakes, do they share physical characteristics which are not generally seen seen in other localities? The next factor would be time. I don't think it's neccessary for the two snakes to have been likely to have mated in the wild for them to be consider a locale pair. As long as there is a liklihood of geneflow within a reasonable period of time I might consider them locale. This geneflow could be via their offspring or their offsprings offspring, etc. It doesn't have to be limited to what might take place strictly within one generation because the characteristics of a locality are not likely to change in just one generation. A generation just means the time between offspring to offsping and with kingsnakes that can be as little as two years but usually is probably about three to five years. So the life of any given kingsnake can actually span several generations.

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