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....just long enough for a rushed shot. Finally! She was drawn to the plastic parsley bait I provided LOL.

Female Utah "yellowhead" C. collaris (formerly C. c. auriceps)

DC

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I've got the blues...LOL...them screamin' yellow-head blues...

if yah care to answer:is the short blunt snout a sign of auriceps because i have/had a c.collaris with the short snout also have a c.collaris with a really long snout and one with an in-betweeny snout!Also is there other distinguishing features of the old skool scientific names,IE:auriceps,vestigium and nebrius?Just curious as to why they changed it all.The monitor forum is buzzing with this kind of discussion just now and the general consensus seems to be that the field scientists are clueless as to the real ways of life that varanids lead and only see what happens after they have been disturbed/relocated.Is this the case or is there plausible reason as to why collareds were stripped of the many subspecies which seemed to exist?

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see yah laterz people
jason

....the Utah yellowheads (former C. c. auriceps} seem to have a slightly longer snout than the "regular" eastern collareds, which I think are the species with the most truncated snouts of all the Crotaphytus. Most of mine from Texas parents (with one exception LOL) are VERY blunt-nosed compared to the Utahs, but the Utah C. collaris are still shorter nosed than virtually all of the other species (C. dickersonae, vestigium, grismeri, antiquus, nebrius, insularis, bicinctores) with one possible exception being C. reticulatus.
The former subspecies of C. collaris (with the exception of C. nebrius, which was elevated to full species) are currently thought to be "color/pattern classes" and lack consistancy in range, with identical appearances in color found in widely separated areas. Essentially, there is nothing distinct enough in terms of differences from other populations of C. collaris to merit their classification as a sub-species. To quote McGuire's Taxonomic Remarks:
"....all of the subspecies of C. collaris except C. nebrius (C. c. auriceps, C. c.baileyi, C. c. melanomaculatus) are here synonymized with C. collaris, because no evidence has ever been presented, nor has any been discovered here, that these taxa represent independant lineages.
[...]the subspecies of C. collaris do not appear to be on separate phylogenetic trajectories and do not even seem to represent useful pattern classes."

Taxonomy does seem to be something of a moving target LOL.

DC
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I've got the blues...LOL...them screamin' yellow-head blues...

....when quoting McGuire's list of synonymized subspecies.

{Blush}.

DC
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I've got the blues...LOL...them screamin' yellow-head blues...

both in terms of DC's observations/analysis, and McGuire's rationale for putting all C. collaris subspecies under the single heading of C. collaris. And yes, it would probably be wise not to etch all current taxonomic classifications in stone...

Brock

lol,i honestly thought it was going to be alot more complicated than that.Its still a little confusing but im getting there
once again guys thanx
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see yah laterz people
jason