Reptile & Amphibian Forums

It seems from what I have been reading lately that the trend from the new school herpetologist(last 10-15years)is to drop subspecies. From the comment I have read below by Will Lou and Fabian I really don't know if this is such a good idea. This is really prevalent in Grismer's Herps of Baja Califonia book also(quite comically) known as the "This Lizard Can Be Distinguished From Every Other Lizard In The Region" book. It seems Lee goes against all science and drops mostly all of the subspecies names and just calls them "color localities". He also on his own accord raises some from subspecies to species level. I thought this was kind of poor as it seems he did this on his own for no scientific reason other than his opinion. Anyway just an observation and thought. I was at a symposium and Lee Grismer gave a talk, "What Makes a Species a Species?" He stated that if he where to take a group of a certain species of lizard and place it on an island and they started to take hold that this group is now a different species than what he put on the island because now it is on a different evolutionary path. Seems a little radical to me as they have the same charateristics as the animals he put on the island: they have not changed at all. I think that I am going to call the chuckwallas I keep Sauromalus grebii as they are now in my collection and are on a different evolutionary path than Sauromalus varius. I better not exchange animals with anyone as now we will have hybrids-OH NO! Anyone else have any comments as I thought this was a good thread? Tom

Evolutionary path...does this mean they derived from wood chucks?

I like your naming scheme, and I too will adopt it for my self. My collareds will be Crotaphytus eddini...I will breed for a species that is a bit harder to contain in small tight enclosures...to be known as C. eddini houdini.

I kill me
I will go with C collaris studlyi

I like it. I see you know John. HEHE. Just kidding John.

I'll do again!!!

http://sorrel.humboldt.edu/~kll1/speciesdef.html

Defining species.

Um, no. An evolutionary path is not created as soon as you place a species in isolation from the rest of the species. Evolution is gradual (millions of years!), as we all know. This is exactly the reason for my argument. Just because a group of lizards is morphologically different from the rest, doesn't mean that it's a different species; or for that matter, a different subspecies. There is a POSSIBILITY that a population that is isolated by a body of water or a mountain is undergoing changes different to those of another population (and if it is, it does not happen as soon as they become isolated!). This is only speculation, it cannot be known or determined by just looking at squamation or coloration. It must be determined genetically.

Fabian

Here is an example. Are you familiar with the Genus Sauromalus(chuckwallas)? Anyway there is a population that inhabits one mountain range in the Phoenix area. South Mountain Park more correctly the Salt River Mountains. There is a population of chucks there that is solid black with an orange tail. Hollingsworth says this is just a cline(spelling). The genetic work was done on the South Mountain chuckwalla by I beleive Kwiatkowski(formerly Flowers)and it is more genetically different from ater(formerly obesus) than S. varius(an island giant chuck) is. I hope you are familiar with this genus so you can understand what I am talking about. I really do not understand how they classify these animals.

An animal on a different evolutionary path is NOT necessarily a different species. That is exactly the point. All "localities" or so-called "subspecies" of C. collaris, for example, may be on their way to becoming something else, such as C. collaris aurifer.

NOTE: "on their way" means hundreds of years.

Fabian
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Fabián Aguirre
Zookeeper/ Freshwater Aquarist
Department of Herpetology and Freshwater Biology
The Dallas World Aquarium
(214) 720-2224
fabian@dwazoo.com
www.dwazoo.com

not aurifer, auriceps!

become a different species or subspecies? This is very confusing to everyone. It seems that the definition of a species is different depending on who you talk to. What is the definition of a subspecies?