>>Jeff,
>>ssp. is "subspecies" and sp. or spp. is "species". So, if you write Drymarchon melanurus ssp., then you are speaking of the subspecies of D.melanurus in general. If you say Drymarchon sp or Drymarchon spp. then you are speaking of the genus Drymarchon in general. Since some of these critters were formerly under the species Drymarchon corais, there may be some confusion. So, you may occasionally see something like Drymarchon melanurus rubidus(sp. nov) or maybe Drymarchon melanurus rubidus(sp. nov Wuster). The (sp. nov) means "species nova" or "new species".

G'day oldherper,

A few alterations to what was a good post (hope you don't mind ):

Abbreviations such as sp., spp., or ssp. are most often used if one is not exactly sure what one is dealing with. For instance, if you have a Drymarchon melanurus, but you don't know which subspecies, then you might label a photo "Drymarchon melanurus ssp." Ditto for "Drymarchon sp." if you are unsure of the species.

The abbreviations "sp. nov.", "sp. n." or "ssp. nov." are **only, ever** used in the publication where the taxon is first described as new, not later, even if it is reallocated. So in my Drymarchon paper, I used "Drymarchon caudomaculatus sp. nov.", since I was describing that taxon as new to science. However, no other paper after that should use "sp. nov." in conjunction with D. caudomaculatus afterwards. Similarly, Drymarchon melanurus was only a new combination (since melanurus was previously regarded as a ssp. of D. corais), not a new taxon, as it had been described in 1854 by Bibron et al. Some authors use the abbreviations "comb. nov." when forming a new genus-species name combination, but never sp. nov. or ssp. nov.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Wolfgang
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