is what gets my vote based on appearance. That said, they could easily have descended from animals collected at the heart of nelsoni range. Here's why:



From info and photos I've gathered from friends who live or spend large amounts of time in Mexico, it appears that the sinaloae and conanti look (including their wide red rings and "bigger" bodies) is common along the more mesic areas in the Pacific region of Mexico. The arcifera appearance (including increased melanin and smaller size) has evolved in the higher, drier, inland areas of the same region (i.e. the Laguna de Chapala area of Jalisco). The intermediate nelsoni is, as one would suspect, found in intermediate environs. Animals that look like nelsoni appear in arcifera and sinaloae habitat from time to time. Similarly, I've seen photos of animals from coastal Colima (as solid as nelsoni range gets) with both wide red bands and with heavy black crossovers (in addition to more normal nelsoni, of course). This is blending of characterists especially common in areas areas where the habitat and climate grade from one into another, and the snakes' appearance does too. These intergrade zones are sometimes very vast, resulting in animals with a blended appearance being found over many miles. Gene flow is awesome.



Call them subspecies, pattern classes, geographically constrained (mostly) ecomorphs, or whatever. They're both the same AND different. While they're all "Pacific Region L. triangulum" and genetic work has shown them to be a cohesive body, the characterists that have evolved which make each population unique and generally identifiable are valuable and interesting... and ultimately worth preserving in both the wild and captivity.



I'd like to end by stating that I'm not in any way claiming that the breeder of the Black Panther nelsoni is crossing animals or misleading his buyers. Those animals may actually have locality data for all I know.



-Cole

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