Someone above made an excellent point. Nobody trains today to be a herpetologist. People are in diverse fields such as systematics, behavioral ecology, functional morphology etc. Herps just happen to be the model organism for a great deal of researchers. Think of it this way, is the person studying behavioral ecology of bushmasters more of a herpetologist than a medical researcher who uses Xenopus neuroethology to answer questions about brains. In general, researchers today are much more question oriented than taxon oriented. In other words, whatever organism is best suited to answering the broader question in general is the organism that's used. In my own research, I'm interested in the evolution of morphological diversity and the role of constraint in shaping diversity...I use the independent evolution of limblessness found in so many herps to answer many of my questions regarding evolutionary patterns and processes...While I have always loved herps, took herpetology in college and subsequently have taught the course, and perform 99% of my research on a myriad array of herps, I consider myself an evolutionary biologist first and "herpetologist" only in the most broad sense...



Additonally, someone foolishly mentioned the idea that by the time someone finishes receiveing their degree, they are probaly antiquated and of little use...this is ridiculous, any researcher, whether a vet, doctor, academic, what-have-you is constantly updating themselves on the current literature.



Lastly, I think many people who are well read on herps are simply well read herpetoculturists. The majority of papers in peer reviewed journals pertaining to herps, like Copeia and Journal of Herpetology are of little or no use to the herpetoculturist interested in maintaining and breeding his charges. Interestingly, though, the topic of debate here recently, regarding taxonomy and systematics of Boa Constrictors is certainly something that could potentially warrant further research. I have thought it would be very interesting to perform a molecular phylogenetic study of boa constrictors in North and South America...for what it's worth, I think boas from the guyana shield (our surinam and guyana boas) would certainly fall out into a monophyletic group...I think the problem people are having on this board is simply a matter of scale (no pun intended). On the broadest level, boas are boas and there is certainly gene flow between populations of boas in surinam and guyana. But certainly, however, populations of boas whether in surinam or guyana have accumulated distinct genetic differences...in other words, both sides are probably correct from a scientific point of view...If I used mitochondrial DNA for a population based study of boa constrictors (mtDNA is relatively rapidly evolved compared to nuclear DNA) then I would probably conclude that the boas in the two regions are "different." If however, I were to use the slower nuclear markers (these don't accumulate genetic differences as quickly as mtDNA) for a broader based study of the place of Boas within the broader family as a whole, I might conclude that all boas in northern south america are the same. Anyway, this is all conjecture...my point is to demonstrate that we may simply be looking on a different scale...sure boas are boas, but each boa is genetically uniqe from all others...



just my 2 cents...

gabriel

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