>>I love species, subspecies, and even more, local morphs, as in specific local types. If I had a wish, I would wish they changed the way S.N. is decided and make it more useful to the whole world, not just the current interpitation of the current form of biology.(so they can talk amoungst themselves)
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>> But that is not the case.
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>> The point is clear, in order for there to be intergrades, they must intergrade and that has not been shown to occur to darn often.
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>> For instance many of these intergrade populations do not border two subspecies, they border normal of subspecies of one type and the other intergrade parent, is many many miles away.(to far to crawl) That is indeed a problem.
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>> To me it seems more about human captive paradigns of what is called what. If a speckled kings has blotches its an intergrade, which is wrong, many, if not most populations of speckled kings have some degree of blotching or another. Or if a splendida, has some degree of speckling, then its a holbrooki intergrade, but that is not true either. Please, these are just examples.
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>> First, one needs to understand the abilities of getulus, they can be speckled, striped, blotched, shifted side bands(chain pattern) banded, melanistic, patternless, or abberant, etc. These characteristics can occur in all subspecies, or not. These characteristics are tools for the survival of getulus. Not necessarily difintions of a subspecies.
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>> Again for instance,
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>> Do calkings have a chain pattern, the answer is yes it occurs naturally.
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>> Can eastern chainkings be banded, the answer is yes, that occurs normally. etc etc.
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>> Now the real question and problem, gene flow does not occur between most populations of any kingsnake, that is, they live in isolated localities within a species range. Thanks FR

Frank, I'm not exactly sure how to agrue this with you, but I feel like I agree with some things and disagree with others. If you read my other posts with Forks you'll see the things I agree on. What I mainly disagree with, I think, is the gene flow idea.

I know there's examples of isolated populations, but I think, in general, a species tends to be continuous through its range. Anyway, I think there is gene flow throughout a species range. Once a population is isolated, then a process of speciation can begin. But it probably takes a few thousand years, or whatever, before significant changes occur. Some slight variation could probably get the isolated pop a label of a subspecies.

Some of my ideas are pretty controversial also. For instance, few people think there is gene flow throughout the combined range of Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (corn snake) and P. g. emoryi (GP rat). I believe there is gene flow from one subspecies to the other, and thus I see them as one species, guttatus. Others see them as two species, P. guttatus and P. emoryi.

So much of what is going on is arbitrary, but these are good ideas to throw around and we can learn a lot from them. I think you need to look at each case individually and make an informed decision.

Thanks for bringing up the questions for the strand...

Terry Cox

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