I'm not going to argue beliefs here, but will talk about how Utiger, et.al.(2002) came to their conclusions, so there's some clarification there. It was basically a study of DNA/genetic material, I believe. I don't think they used much in the way of morphological characteristics or other biological means to do their proposal. The Old World Elaphe do have an "intrapulmonary bronchus" to one length or another, and the New World Elaphe seem to be lacking that organ for the most part. Other than that they look a lot a like, I agree. My question would be, "Are their genetic differences enough to reclassify them?" Morphology alone certainly isn't enough, all that was done in previous studies, and I don't know if any taxonomist is willing to look at something like behavioral differences in their proposals. One more thing that they looked at I think was the differences in hemipenes. I believe the structures of the New World rats have some similarities and are different from Old World. My choice of words would be, more evolved.



Hope this helps a little. Cheers....TC.

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