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I know that this topic has been discussed on here many times. But I was thinking about all of the subspecies of L.getula and it seems to me that this complex of snake, more than any other I can think of, really seems to be one species and a lot of color variation. I mean, look at easterns and black kings. Easterns that come from NJ look quite a bit different than those that come from Georgia. But we all agree they are both easterns. Whenever I see hatchling black kings I always think they have to be easterns. And as adults they just look like easterns with obscured patterns. The whole getula complex feels that way to me. It seems that it's the same snake but that in different areas different colors/patterns are predominant depending on what works best for survival in that particular habitat. Look at floridas and easterns. So many similarities there. And then all the confusion over "goini".

Anyway, I guess this thinking really could apply to any group of subspecies and it all depends on where you stand on taxonomy. But for some reason, it really seems like the case with getula. Just my thoughts

Mike, I somewhat tend to agree, the more specks and deserts I see, the more I lean to lumping. I used to be a conformed splitter, but the patterns on some of my mbks remind me of a dirty splendida, and I have some "intergrades" of splendies and holbrooki, but I am thinking more and more that the nominant form is splendida and the color and size variants are regional. But the floridanas dont remind me of splendida or the brooksi either. The head shapes are all different. Never saw a pin headed splendida in the wild, lol! I am swayed that they all should have some more serious looks taken at them and dna testing may lump some together. I do think mbk, splendida and holbrooki are the same snake, but niger, g.getula and the east coast/Florida snakes highly resemble each other physically. My .02.
Todd Hughes

Those pics are 1 holbrooki 2 splendida 3 mbk first two w.c. and last c.b. I will be on the hunt for w.c.mbk lateron this year. This series is
Todd Hughes

Those pics are 1 holbrooki 2 splendida 3 mbk first two w.c. and last c.b. I will be on the hunt for w.c.mbk lateron this year. This series is splendida w.c., holbrooki w.c., holbrooki w.c. all different from previous post, but the physical similarities are uncanny, imho.
Todd Hughes

yeah, i actually meant to mention the similarities between splendida and holbrooki. and the way you split it up seems to make sense to me. It just seems that the more specimens you see the more similarities you see. when you "classic" examples of all the subspecies it seems more likely that they are in fact separate subspecies. But when you realize that there are many variations on the classic look then you seen how much overlap there really is. Thanks for your examples. They really illustrate the point.

Mike

Here is the definition to the term...

sub·spe·cies NOUN:

A taxonomic subdivision of a species consisting of an interbreeding, usually geographically isolated population of organisms.

I think that the subs can be lumped to gether somewhat i.e. Splendida and Holbrooki but I think some of them have been isolated from others subs for sometime and have evolved to not just look different but are genetically different. I guess you need to look at the criterea for what makes a sub. Its not just color and or pattern and in fact I believ scientfically those arent good criterea at all due to variation within even all populations. They use things like scale counts which have seemed to be the best way to determine the differnet species and or subs. If we used the train of thought that you employ then some might consider Russian Ratsnakes and Eastern Kings the same as they both lay eggs and both have chain patterns ??? Its this reason that pattern color dont determine whats a sub and what isnt. There are others who can speak to this more than I but this is my opinion anyway.

Keith

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Good point. And I realize that there is much more that goes into determining a subspecies than just color and pattern, although sometimes it seems that subspecies are designated as such SOLELY on color and pattern. I guess that's my point. It seems that there are probably less actual subspecies and more geographic variations than the other way around. It's an interesting topic. And a complex one. And getula seems to be a good place to start a discussion. Thanks for your input.

I guess thats the sticking point in that arent geographic variations arguably sometimes subspecies?

Keith
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Keith I think the definition you posted answers the question. The term subspecies says it all. They are, after all, all the same species. Geographic barriers (distance, terrain, elevation etc.) made them differ over time.

That definition pretty much says what it is. Mike I do agree with you in that yes they are all the same species, but the regional differences as a whole are strong. My roommate's little Cal King has pretty strong physical differences then my East Coast snakes (Eastern and Brooksi); for instance its head is shapped different and I believe has entirely different scale patterns there. On the other hand, I don't see any differences other than color and pattern that between my Eastern and Florida "brooksi".

They are all Getula with small differences to make them subs.

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Matt from Minnesota

Good points from everyone. Maybe it just comes down to how seriously you take the term "subspecies". If you take it to simply mean "geographic variations" than that's just what they are. Makes sense. I think people get too hung on them sometimes and think of them as so much more than a pretty artificial system of neatly "organizing" living things. Interesting stuff. Thanks again for all the replies.

Too bad most hobbyists don't know the diff. btwn
Old world and New world colubrids.

What do you mean?

>>Too bad most hobbyists don't know the diff. btwn
>>Old world and New world colubrids.

A Russian Rat...

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I think its an Eastern king, at least until I get a better look.

I thought i was clear enough. And your russian rat pic proves my point, most American snake hobbyists(beginner/intermediate) would think it's a eastern king. Have a good day.

Yes they look remarkably like Easterns.

Keith
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apoligize for slaming my fellow american snake hobbyists and acting like a better than everyone else immature jerk. thanks.

Ouch Keith, thanks for the lesson in biology. Show me where the scale counts differ in holbrooki and splendida and for that matter nigrita. I know what they are classified as, I just have strong feelings that all the subs should be overhauled and it is an opinion. I see many intergrades, many, many splendida from the wild and even have a few c.b.'s. I have quite a few holbrooki also from the field. I just don't see the difference. Read the key, pretty identical. There are even discrepencies in the other subs; scale counts are not exact. look at that extra scale on Jetzens calking.
We're just kicking it around, and sorry if I offended you.
Todd Hughes

Todd

Did you miss my first sentence on Holbrooki and Splendida ? Here it is... I think that the subs can be lumped to gether somewhat i.e. Splendida and Holbrooki but I think some of them have been isolated from others subs for sometime and have evolved to not just look different but are genetically different.

No Im not offended but I am a little miffed you didnt read my post completely

Keith

>>Ouch Keith, thanks for the lesson in biology. Show me where the scale counts differ in holbrooki and splendida and for that matter nigrita. I know what they are classified as, I just have strong feelings that all the subs should be overhauled and it is an opinion. I see many intergrades, many, many splendida from the wild and even have a few c.b.'s. I have quite a few holbrooki also from the field. I just don't see the difference. Read the key, pretty identical. There are even discrepencies in the other subs; scale counts are not exact. look at that extra scale on Jetzens calking.
>> We're just kicking it around, and sorry if I offended you.
>> Todd Hughes
>>

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My bad, Keith. I am too quick to reply sometimes. I don't know squat about easterns except they look good and are too far for a road trip! Wish I had a camera right now as we found the chocolate splendida and it is a "wild type" with no appreciable pattern. From the beach they are messy black and yellow but from 15 miles inland can be brown or black, but THIS guy looks like Jetzen's snickers! I will only say that these close proximity subs just have a similarity that I don't see in the easterns, Florida and Georgia, or cal kings. All getula but......
Todd Hughes

No problem. I also think that Getula can be busted into maybe 3-4 groups.

Group 1 : Californeae

Group 2 : Splendida, Nigrita, Holbrooki and Nigra

Group 3 : Floridana, Getula and the problematics..Goini and Sticticeps.

I kinda feel that the northern Eastern Kings (Mid NC and up)are quite different than the southern animals and could maybe someday be Group 4. Just my opinion and thats based on look and other characteristics Ive noticed. There are pockets of southern looking Easterns in the north as well with the SE VA Easterns having really wide crossbars and some parts of NE NC. Anyway just my thoughts and Im open to other opinions as well.

Keith
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Very interesting on some of those SE Va. Eastern kings, with the wider bands. Howie Sherman's Va. Beach animals come to mind, as well as some of those chesapeake animals I've seen.

Steve

>>kinda feel that the northern Eastern Kings (Mid NC and up)are quite different than the southern animals and could maybe someday be Group 4. Just my opinion and thats based on look and other characteristics Ive noticed. There are pockets of southern looking Easterns in the north as well with the SE VA Easterns having really wide crossbars and some parts of NE NC. Anyway just my thoughts and Im open to other opinions as well

"I use common kingsnake, Lampropeltis getula, because I don't recognize subspecies--they are evolutionary uninformative. Subspecific names are rapidly dissapearing and should be gone within a decade"
J.T.Collins, CNAH ,2-7-06, (Goini thread)

I have to somewhat agree with J.T. , and i believe the getula world will see some major mergers in the not so distant future.

I totally agree that most sub-species should be dropped. I'm a botanical taxonomist by schooling and a naturalist by profession. I have found sub-specific monikers to be grossly applied to the smallest of differences and most "DNA" work to be misleading at best and inaccurate at worst.

The analysis that I'm looking for is not usually presented with the paperwork that accompanies the papers claiming new or revised sub-species. What do I mean? If you take a group of animals ( lets say group A)that you believe to be "geneticly" different than another group (B)how do you prove a sub-species?

1. You extract DNA
2. You use enzymes to replicate the DNA so you have enough to test
3. You use another enzyme to chop the DNA into discrete pieces
4. You run the chopped DNA through electrophoresis to see how the pieces resort themselves.

If the pieces from group A sort differently than B people will say "New sub-species". The problem is that in step 3 you have no idea exactly what was cut into pieces. If the visual difference between group A and B is a collection of "linked" (meaning on same chromesome so they tend to transfer together) alleles then you might only be recording the difference between blonde hair and brown hair and not something more meaningful. Because in-depth analysis of the DNA techniques are not presented nor are they always understood by the researcher I find most DNA "proof" to be highly suspect.

I find the whole concept of a subspecies to be suspect and fairly worthless. common kingsnakes are no exception we have clusters of certain physical traits that we call goini or getula or holbrooki but they are all common kingsnakes. Locality is the key. A Maryland kingsnake is just that a snake found in Maryland. It can breed with any other kingsnake it happens to meet anywhere they happen to meet. The whole landscape of the common kingsnake is one of gradual change from adjoining group to adjoining group with sometimes very broad bands of "intergrades" which are just areas where the alleles are mixing.

I hope this came across as a coherent idea and not just some random scribblings. I'm taking a much needed day in the office .
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Bob Bull
1.3 L.g.getula MD Locality
3.4 L.g.g GA locality
2.3 L.g.g albino
1.4 L.g.g het albino
1.2 L.g.g P-het albino
1.0 L.g.floridana super peanutbutter
0.2 L.g.f. peanutbutter
1.0 L.g.f. N.E. axanthic
1.0 L.g.nigrita
1.1 L.t.hondurensis het hypo-melanistic

Very interesting post. Thanks.

Thank you.

A refeshing viewpoint in a decade dominated by minute indiscriminant DNA sampling. Too little a view of the whole pie most of the time, combined with a lack of surety of even how much, or what part of a slice you are seeing. On the other hand, it is not much different then declaring new species based on finding a slight difference in the shape or length of one tooth found in 98% of a population....

What happened to systematic taxonomy? Locality, morphology, phylogeny, DNA, behavior, habitat assessment, color pattern variation, etc., can all have a part, or no part, in determining taxonomic qualities for a given population.

Our labels are only as good as the data we can ween out of the specimens we have in front of us.

very good post, the main thing that i try to get at is no matter how we would like for some animals to keep their original scientific names stuff is discovered about them that causes a name change, that's progress there's nothing we can do about it.
And the DNA technology that is happening is gonna rock the animal kingdom w/o a doubt.

yes well said bob;genetic terminology gets very complicated/hard to follow,i wil be the first to admit,and i'm just a naturalist by choice/hobby/passion(and engineer by trade)...but i think you had a pretty clear summary there,and i happen to agree with you that snakes in particular are over-split as far as taxonomy;extreme cases that come to mind being not just getula,but perhaps more so,triangulum;coluber constrictor;and the genera thamnophis and nerodia,to name a few....as i will adress below in mark's post,i do however try to keep 'true' to locality in my personal collection of captive bred snakes;just because,taxonomically speaking,i think an invalid relic like 'goini' is just a morphologically unique limited population(not even isolated)of a species that spans from jersey to mexico,does'nt mean i can't try to continue selectively breedsing those bloodlines to maintain their unique pattern and appearence...sort of like a discontinued(or soon to be?) collectable(from just a hobbyist's point of veiw-taxonomy aside!).also bob how did you fare in that muhlenbergii symposium?hope it was a success...email me if you still wanna herp this season.
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"with head raised regally,and gazing at me with lidless eyes,he seemed to question with flicks of his long forked tongue my right to trespass on his territory" Carl Kauffeld

No offense but we are almost all hobbiest and we are still using "Brooksi" which has been gone for years. So as a group we are stubborn and we will all use the subspecies names even if it is changed in the books. I know I will not want a "kingsnake" from someone if I don't know which king it is. So in the end no matter what, we will still be calling easterns, easterns. The hybrid guys will still be breeding this with that and no one will know what the snake is. The only thing that will come from lumping everything together is more kings that you can't ID. So I say keep them separate.

Later Jason

use the term "brooksi" now to describe snakes that either by locality or appearance would not have been classified as "brooksi" when it was valid term.

LOL Yeah they do

Later Jason

ID snakes anyway, you sold me this snake, what is it?
no offence, just trying to understand your reasoning.

That one is a mystery because of the fact the parents are not some sort of cross. That is exactly as I sold it to you with no pretense of what they might be. I think they are "Brooksi" X Eastern but I don't know. So you have a mystery king.

It would have been fair to include the fact that the animal was represented to you as such in your original post and that you asked for babies when I said that I did not know where the parents are from and I had no background info. I get your point here but your statement looks like I sold you a snake, and you ask for info after the fact, and I didn't have any.

A snake like that one is part of my point. If all subs where ignored it would be a king. What is it though????? The babies are cool but I like the pure animals better.

later Jason

The first line should have said.
That one is a mystery because of the fact the parents are some sort of cross.

I added in "not" in the original line for some reason.

Nevermind, i was just being a jerk.

So????

and this is why-like a said above in response to bob bull-and no i'm not a taxonomist,biologist,or any type of actual scientist....so i guess i'm just a hobbyist and naturalist....now that that's clear,lol-to me it's obvious that snakes in particular are divided to much at the subspecific level(compared to say,monitors-all one genus)....i generally feel most subspecies should just be considered locality morphs of said species,as long as there is free integration where they overlap-as is the case in point,with getula-or so many other species,most obvious examples being the ones with a lot of subspecies-just indicates a more variable species....that being said,no i am not one to breed my goinis with my sticticeps-though both are not even valid subspecies today!lol....why?simple,because i view that-snakes i buy/breed,etc.-from a hobbyist's perspective,with disregard to the latest ASIH publication,or whatever,regarding man's latest taxonomic juggling/shuffling/etc....i.e. i keep/breed what i like regardless of it's taxonomic validity or lack thereof.and to avoid confusion,i won't get into temporalis locale-mixing,eeeesh!lol...but my point is one's personal stance on taxonomy-lumping,splitting,whatever-can be wholly independent of one's breeding tendencies.
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"with head raised regally,and gazing at me with lidless eyes,he seemed to question with flicks of his long forked tongue my right to trespass on his territory" Carl Kauffeld

LOL Justin I agree with you. The title I put was more because I got frustrated with the shorter title length thing pissing me off. I had a longer title that didn't fit and then a second one and then I said screw it.

Anyway like I said I agree with you but IMHO most getting into the hobby will breed to whatever level the snakes are split into. Using the subs as a guide as to how far they can go. Some will go to hybrids but most won't (I Hope!!) I just like the idea of more splits keeping more of the area specific "phases" or subs apart from the others. I like the idea of a split that keeps mor of the animals out there that i may buy "pure" to the locale they came from.

Some people look at a banded cali and think it is a eastern now. More grouping will just enforce that ignorance by not giving a reason to learn why a cali and a eastern are different. That is my basic point of view.

Like you I will keep on breeding what I breed and I will have little care for the outcome of a grouping move by the guys in the lab coats. I like the idea of a genetically isolated animal becoming the "Goini" and I have a pre-described picture in my head of what one should look like. Since nobody can really go back in time to see what really was going on back then it doesn't matter. So I will keep breeding for the look in my head and I will keep on enjoying my idea.

Later Jason

Please, NO!

Personally, I'm happy with the way things are - the last thing I want to see is a Lampropeltis replay of the whole "pantherophis" debacle that has befallen the north american ratsnkes.

I wonder what Roger Conant would think about this?
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1.1 Creamsicle Cornsakes
1.0 Bairds Ratsnake

Will DNA testing straighten the situation out? I don't know, maybe someone who is familiar with it can enlighten us. I believe with DNA testing we can determine just how interrelated the different ssp. are.