Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recently read in Brian Hubb's Mountain King book that L.p.infralabialis was going to be done away with and lumped in with L.p.pyro much like what happened with L.p.woodini. Anyone out there have any confirmation of this or suggestion of where I might find confirmation??

Matt

Not to steal your thread, but I just ordered Hubbs book yesterday. Is it as interesting and helpful as everyone has been saying? THANKS

Is it as interesting and helpful as everyone has been saying?

More so than you can ever imagine. Even if you are not into Mountain Kings it is a joy to read. Heck even if you are not into SNAKES it is a great book.

I believe Brian says that Stebbins doesn't recognize any pyromelana subspecies.

Lemos-Espinal, Julio A., David Chiszar & Hobert M. Smith (2003 Bulletin of the Maryland Herpetological Society 39(3): 53-58) seperated knoblochi as a seperate species (l. knoblochi) from pyromelana, and dropped all other pyromelana subspecies designations.

Van Devender et al.(1992) said that infralabialis was barely discernable from pyro pyro.

I don't know what the official word is, but it doesn't look good for infralabialis.
Center for North American Herpetology pyro info

Interesting...I would say from that site that infralabialis is no longer. It also looks like L.p.knoblochi is also in question leaving Lampropeltis pyromelana (Ariz. and Utah) and Lampropeltis knoblochi its own species covering Mexico??
THANKS

Matt

I would like to see the paper that seperates knoblochi from pyromelana. They intergrade with each other don't they? Under this theory the intergrades would be natural hybrids. I don't buy it.

Greg
better link for pyro taxonomy

Years ago, when science was just discovering wildlife, it was vogue to name everything as a species or subspecies. There were beetles that got different names proposed because they had been collected at different stops along the same rail route. Kind of a Victorian thing. Collectors like the idea that there are lots of legitimately different species, since it means they don't, in fact, have five copies of the same thing in their collection. You see this real bad in insect collecting. I have never been much in the camp of the subspecies crowd, and I've bred over a hundred pyros, so I know that any pairing is capable of producing any color phase. I thought infralabialis might stand, because it used a physiological trait rather than a color phase, but I don't know how extensive the type series is--if it's based on one or a very few specimens, and especially if no others have been found since, then the infralabialis character was most likely individual variation.

For the purposes of discussion within the hobby, I adopted the language used by the bug collectors, and call the various synonomized subspecies "forms". Thus, (yes, I did just use the word "thus" in a sentence) L. p. woodini would be referred to as L. pyromelana f. (for "form) woodini, or simply the woodini form. "Phase'" is currently in common use, and that's fine, too.

As taxonomy becomes more sophisticated, and as new generations of taxonomists are granted their PhDs (and arrive at their first posts full of the need to quickly develop a rep in their field--a factor in the momentum of revisionist taxonomy), we'll see many taxa in a new light. It's not just the new crop of post-docs, of course--another factor is that as a generation of scholars matures, they become more insightful, and their experience starts to pay off with new and better understandings. DNA studies can unravel relationships, long-ignored taxa may come under fresh scrutiny as the more popular taxa are disposed of and scholars need to dig farther into left field to find ground that's not already completely plowed, and we can expect many revisions, some of which will stand, and some of which will not.

>>Years ago, when science was just discovering wildlife, it was vogue to name everything as a species or subspecies. There were beetles that got different names proposed because they had been collected at different stops along the same rail route. Kind of a Victorian thing. Collectors like the idea that there are lots of legitimately different species, since it means they don't, in fact, have five copies of the same thing in their collection. You see this real bad in insect collecting. I have never been much in the camp of the subspecies crowd, and I've bred over a hundred pyros, so I know that any pairing is capable of producing any color phase. I thought infralabialis might stand, because it used a physiological trait rather than a color phase, but I don't know how extensive the type series is--if it's based on one or a very few specimens, and especially if no others have been found since, then the infralabialis character was most likely individual variation.
>>
>>For the purposes of discussion within the hobby, I adopted the language used by the bug collectors, and call the various synonomized subspecies "forms". Thus, (yes, I did just use the word "thus" in a sentence) L. p. woodini would be referred to as L. pyromelana f. (for "form) woodini, or simply the woodini form. "Phase'" is currently in common use, and that's fine, too.
>>
>>As taxonomy becomes more sophisticated, and as new generations of taxonomists are granted their PhDs (and arrive at their first posts full of the need to quickly develop a rep in their field--a factor in the momentum of revisionist taxonomy), we'll see many taxa in a new light. It's not just the new crop of post-docs, of course--another factor is that as a generation of scholars matures, they become more insightful, and their experience starts to pay off with new and better understandings. DNA studies can unravel relationships, long-ignored taxa may come under fresh scrutiny as the more popular taxa are disposed of and scholars need to dig farther into left field to find ground that's not already completely plowed, and we can expect many revisions, some of which will stand, and some of which will not.
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In response to the intergrade between pyro pyro and knoblochi I have never seen one officially listed as such. Most pyro locales are unable to intergrade with others due to the large mountain ranges that seperate them. We have seen, however, similiar characteristics in what we call pyro pyro and knoblochi. I think the very unique white nose of ALL the Sonoran Mountain kings would tie them together somehow and it seems possible that we are merely looking at phenotypic differances of the same snake that have taken on individual characteristics for the given locales.
This takes me to the post talking about 'forms' which is what most of us call locale specific animals. 'Phase' has been used most notably with Bob Applegate's animal which is a reproducible simple recessive trait and has a specific phenotype tied to it. Not sure if 'forms' and 'phase' would be used synonymously but the facts remain the Sonoran Mountain kings are a unique group with similiar geography, traits, coloration etc. Pretty cool animals to work with I might add...Thanks to all for the great posts.

Matt Woodhall