Reptile & Amphibian Forums

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It's got all the scientific names of everything. Should save you some time forum posting.
By the way, Heterodon nasicus nasicus.
scientific name mania

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It is simply Heterodon nasicus, since gloydi is bogus and kennerlyi has now been elevated to full species rank. There are no subspecies of western hogs any more.

Furthermore, one could argue that the name "Plains Hognosed Snake" is not valid anymore. Heterodon nasicus is simply the Western Hognosed Snake.

I might also point out that if you don't agree with any of the recent taxonomic changes within nasicus, the common name for H. nasicus nasicus would more correctly be "Plains Hognosed Snake", not "Western Hognosed Snake".
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Chris Harrison

"A species is a population of animals that possess common charactoristics and freely interbreed in nature and produce fertile offspring." Audubon field guide

Western hognose; mexicans and plains, most likely cross breed in nature. So I'm not sure I get why they have been changed? Does anyone know why?

A species is a population of animals that possess common charactoristics and freely interbreed in nature and produce fertile offspring." Audubon field guide

or Biological Species Concept. The problem with that species definition is that it doesn't work for many (most?) living organisms. How do you apply this to distinguish two closely related species of asexual organisms, for example? There is no interbreeding.
How do you decide if Cal Kings and Eastern Kings are the same species? Are they potentially interbreeding? Certainly not in the wild.
How do you apply the BSC to determine fossil species?

There are other (hotly debated) species concepts that are more popular, such as the Evolutionary Species Concept, Phylogenetic Species Concept, the Paleontological Species Concept. They all have flaws that can be pointed out. (As soon as anyone reads anyone else's species concept, the first thing everyone says is - What about _______? This concept doesn't work for those species!)

Here is a list of some of the many species defintions that have been penned.

As for Heterodon, it doesn't really matter what concept you apply. The issue is that kennerlyi and nasicus don't seem to interbreed much at the limited areas of contact between the two species. You find good nasicus right up to edge of the range of good kennerlyi. There are occasional individuals that show intermediate characteristics, but generally snakes from the contact zone are either one taxon or the other.

Therefore, we can infer that there must be some sort of isolating mechanism keeping these snakes from interbreeding at the contact zone (even if the mechanism is the historical ranges). kennerlyi from West Texas look more like kennerlyi from south TX and Mexico than they do from snakes from populations of nasicus less than 100 miles away. Clearly they are maintaining some sort of genetic identity.

Contrast that with the large intergrade areas you see between subspecies (black/yellow rats, eastern/florida kingsnakes).

This is largely the basis for recognizing both hogs as independent evolutionary lineages and therefore separate species.
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Chris Harrison

The take home message Chrish was working on, in case you have not studied up on your species concepts, is that species designation is practically subjective. If you remember a few simple things, you will see the difficulty of taxonomic classification...
All species go extinct eventually.
Genes are constantly mutating, nature is not static, this is the mechanism for the above statement.
Species designation is subjective, and is driven purely by our incessant need to organize nature.

There are several popular methods of assigning species, but as Chrish pointed out, none of them work all of the time. I stay out of species arguments, it is ridiculous to argue about them, unless they change the name of something I like and then I get all huffy and puffy.
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*Humans aren't the only species on earth... we just act like it.

".the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without
spoiling it."
Aldo Leopold (1938)

There you go again with that hognoseD stuff!
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*Humans aren't the only species on earth... we just act like it.

".the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without
spoiling it."
Aldo Leopold (1938)

>>There you go again with that hognoseD stuff!
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>>*Humans aren't the only species on earth... we just act like it.
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>>".the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without
>> spoiling it."
>> Aldo Leopold (1938)
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Chris Harrison

I think that's six species I have now that have either been reclassified recently or are under debate. I don't know what to call a few of them any more and I'm half expecting to open one of the cages one of these days and find out that one has been reclassified as a hamster and now I'll have to give it pellets .
I'm sure you're right about the hognose(d), though. At least Heterodon nasicus is easier to say, for a change.

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