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I have recently produced 7 Spilotes from speckled adults that are lemon yellow and high yellow. Boath male and female are speckled from Honduras. Four seem to be tri-color banded yellow,white and black and very buisy. The other three came out speckled but the exibit the same tri-color sceme in that there is snow white side speckles in neck region and lemon yellow stripe down back and sides with white speckles anteriorly turning to stripes just at tail and speckled to vent area. Questions, has anyone bred speckled to speckled and does the white turn to yellow? The parents look identicle lemon yellow on jet black with black tails. No white.

When Dr Phil says something he knows is going to stir the ant hill, he typically quips that his email is going to be burning. I hope I don't stir the ant hill too badly, but here goes.

Taxonomy, the practice of classifying living things by grouping similarities and separating differences got a much-needed organizational boost from Karl Linne, a Swede with a serious anal streak. He got so far into his latinized binomial culture, he took to calling himself Linneaus, the Latinized treatment of his name. We still use the system of Latin or Latinized binomials to describe species in scholarly discourse.

Enter the collectors. Collectors like to collect. More is better to the collector, and, in contrast with theater, less is never more. Most collectors like to collect things they feel are different from what they already have in their collections, so they give names to color variations, seasonal or regional forms, etc. to support their satisfaction in having a "complete" collection. Scholars sometimes applly a third latin name to an organism--a subspecific epithet, designating a subspecies, but as more is learned about the organism, it sometimes becomes clear that the type specimens used to designate the subspecies are nothing more than color phases or individualities. Not always, but sometimes.

An example would be Lampropeltis pyromelana woodini, the so-called Huachuca Mountain Kingsnake. Supposedly, nominate L. pyromelana pyromelana--the "pyro pyro" or just "pyro" of the collector trade, have more sets of red/black/white bands on their bodies than L. p. woodini. I have bred hundreds of pyro whatever, and I can tell you that whether you are using locality specific animals or mixing locales, the siblings from a given clutch express the full spectrum of pattern, regardless of the origin of the parents. I have seen classic "woodini" from adults collected in northern Arizona, far from the Huachuca Mts, and plenty of classic "pyro pyro" from Huachuca and Chiricahua parents.

I suspect that the potential to express the spectrum of appearances from any part of a species range, lies within every pairing. Hobbyists like to claim that the ones from this or that island or mountain range or state are more yellow, or more red, and often, selective pressure in a region does appear to favor the survival of one color phase or body type, but the raw potential to express the range of color or physicality of the species is in every pairing.

I have heard that Spilotes from one region are more likely to have stripes, or those from another region are more likely to be yellow, and I believe it. But I'm not surprised when a captive breeding produces clutch siblings that express a range of color and pattern. Perhaps not all the striped ones would survive in the "yellow zone", or none of the yellow ones would reach reproductive age in the "striped region", as whatever selective pressures assert their influence to produce our visual assessment of the adult populations in particular regions. It's in the captive breedings that we can finally begin to explore the realities behind heredity and selection, and I love it! I love the way Nature works, and sibling diversity begs the question: what, exactly, would be the selective pressure to be more yellow in a particular area? Why are adults, which are the ones we see most often in the wild, more likely to be one or another color in a given region? Do I have waayyy too much time on my hands? These and other mysteries await.

With the Dr. Phil reference aside. This is by far one of the best posts i've read on a kingsnake.com forum in quite sometime. I completely agree with what you stated, and i'm elated other people put some thought into their snakes genetic pre-dispositions other than the select few I was aware of. I think one of the few species I think that don't completely apply to what was stated would be the Green Tree Pythons. For whatever reason, the breaking up of tiny island clusters in Indonesia has created significantly variable specimens of this species. Although each "cluster" (may I be so broad?) of islands seems to have dominant and obvious color/pattern variances some even being visible in the juvenile stage. Although Indonesia seems to be a mecca of biological diversity for fauna.

Take care,
Jordan

there are plenty of organisms that do indeed deserve subspecific status, and even elevation to species, as in the recent revision of the Collared Lizards ( at least, I support the revision, as if that matters). Different island populations of Green Tree Pythons are reproductively isolated in nature, and that counts for a lot. Just because a corn snake and a Honduran Milk can interbreed in captivity, doesn't mean they should be revised into the same genus.

I think my antenna starts to wave when I suspect that a subspecies has been designated for reasons more to do with human desire to claim diversity in collections, or a young scholar's desire to gain a reputation, than solid, and occasionally disappointing science. I'm in the habit of considering how I feel about the taxonomic status of organisms, and privately don't always accept the current status. I am bound by it in scholarly print, though, and I do respect that, even if I disagree with other authors.