I wouldn't call Elaphe "grossly artificial." It is true that some of the species originally classified in this genus are closer to the racers than to the ratsnakes but most if not all of these species have been removed from Elaphe. The racers are the sister group to Elaphe, so it is no surprise that some forms seem to be intermediate between these two groups. These intermediate species may have been erroneously classified as Elaphe in the past. After these problematic species have been removed, the remaining species of Elaphe should form a natural assemblage. If there is any evidence that the ratsnakes are only similar to each other because of convergent evolution, then please let me know what that evidence is. The unsubstantiated claim that Old World Elaphe is polyphyletic sounds to me more like propaganda than science.



It is true that genera such as Lampropeltis, Arizona and Pituophis evolved from a New World Elaphe, but this species of Elaphe is almost certainly a migrant from the Old World that made it to the New World in the Miocene. It matters not one iota that the type species of Elaphe is an Old World species, since New World Elaphe is part of the Old World Elaphe clade. DNA evidence corroborates it. Without the New World Elaphe species and genera such as Lampropeltis, Arizona and Pituophis, Old World Elaphe would not be monophyletic sensu Hennig. Renaming the North American species of Elaphe Pantherophis only renders Old World Elaphe paraphyletic. I have no idea why any cladist would support that change. In terms of morphology, New World Elaphe differs from Old World Elaphe in having the interpulmonary bronchus, but is this character reason enough for the name change? I submit it is not.



For the sake of taxonomic stability, I surmise that most knowledgeable herpetologists would probably ignore the proposal to transfer the North American species of Elaphe to Pantherophis. Personally I am going to ignore it since it really does not do anything except to create more taxonomic chaos.

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