>>...

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>>>>Can you tell me which species are called fer-de-lances? So far I've got B. lanceolatus, caribbaeus, atrox, and asper, in what might be descending order of correctness. Are there others, or is it just a question of how loose you want the terminology to be?



Basically the latter. Personally, I just don't worry about common names, unless they are well established.



>>...

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>>Before you answer that, I have looked at the EMBL page at http://srs.embl-heidelberg.de:8000/srs5bin/cgi-bin/wgetz?-e [REPTILIA-Species:'Bothrops_SP_atrox']. Of the species listed there as possibly part of B. atrox, Wikipedia lists only leucurus and moojeni, so maybe I should mention them at "Fer-de-lance" too.



They are not usually called that.



>>

>>By the way, if you're Wolfgang Wüster,



I am



>>I wonder whether you're quoted correctly at the EMBL page on B. asper. It says, "Has often been confused with B. atrox and hence erroneously reported from Trinidad and El Salvador (W. Wüster, pers. comm.)." This makes sense for Trinidad, but as you just told me, B. atrox isn't found anywhere in Central America, so it doesn't make sense for El Salvador.



There seems to have been some crossed wires there. There are indeed no reports of either B. asper or B. atrox from El Salvador, the latter becuase it does not occur there, more surprisingly in the case of the former. In the case of Trinidad, the form that occurs there is definitely not B. asper, despite some literature suggesting this. It is one of a series of slightly differentiated and genetically diverse forms occurring in northern South America that are very close to or part of B. atrox.



Cheers,



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