Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Can anyone clear up for me what the current staus is of the old C. viridis complex? I know that C. oreganus branched off into it's own species, with both C. oreganus and C. helleri and I believe C. lutosus...C. viridis maintained C. v virdis, C. v. nuntius and I think one or two others...

To which branch did C. v. cerberus and C. v.concolor go to? Are they considered their own species now? How about C. v. calingus?

If SOMEONE can make sense of this befuddling discombobulation of taxonomy, I'd be much obliged....Thanks!

PS-Wasn't it just easier when it was one species with 9 or so subspecies? I sure think so!

-Kris

Campbell and Lamar (2004) suggest that everything that was formerly in the viridis complex are better suited in the oreganus complex...with the exceptions C. v. viridis and C. v. nuntius...cerberus is also a subspecies of oreganus, along with concolor. Off the top of my head, viridis and nuntius are the only two species retained in the viridis complex.

I think it was actually the work by Pook et al. (2000) that first suggested different lineages of the viridis complex. And it was Ashton & de Queiroz (2001) that first split the two into oreganus and viridis. In it, they put everything in oreganus except viridis and nuntius. In the Douglas et al. (2002) paper on Colorado Plateau rattlesnakes, they proposed the recognition of all the subspecies as individual species.

Basically:
Crotalus oreganus abyssus
Crotalus oreganus concolor
Crotalus oreganus helleri (caliginus is suppressed into helleri)
Crotalus oreganus lutosus
Crotalus oreganus oreganus

Crotalus cerberus (many place it in the oreganus line, is most closely related to helleri but branches off the main oreganus group)

Crotalus viridis (includes viridis and nuntius is suppressed)

Now depending on who you want to go by, you can call them all species, put cerberus in with oreganus, recognize caliginus and nuntius, etc. I think most places - CNAH and SSAR, etc. have accepted the more conservative view of Ashton & de Queiroz and split the species into oreganus (including cerberus) and viridis.

Good luck, it is one big mess! For more information, you should talk to/ask Dr. Wuster.

Pook, C.E., W. Wüster & R.S. Thorpe (2000) Historical biogeography of the western rattlesnake (Serpentes: Viperidae: Crotalus viridis), inferred from mitochondrial DNA sequence information. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 15: 269-282.

Ashton, K.G. & A. de Queiroz (2001) Molecular Systematics of the western rattlesnake, Crotalus viridis (Viperidae), with comments on the utility of the D-Loop in phylogenetic studies of snakes. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 21(2): 176-189.

Douglas, M. E., M.R. Douglas, G.W. Schuett, L.W. Porras & A.T. Holycross (2002) Phylogeography of the western rattlesnake (Crotalus viridis) complex, with emphasis on the Colorado Plateau. Pp. 11-50, in G. W. Schuett, M. Höggren, M. E. Douglas and H. W. Greene, (eds.), Biology of the Vipers. Eagle Mountain Publishing, Eagle Mountain, UT.