Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hubbs called me and we had another talk, its always fun to discuss this stuff with Brian. Yes, fun.
I am finally getting why we have a slightly different approach to this.
I will start with Hubbs approach, he views getula as a number of separate types, cal kings, desert kings, fla kings etc. And calls individuals that are inbetween them, INTERGADES.
In our conversation it we discussed how kings got here in the first place. According to Blaney(and others) getula migrated north out of mexico and then migrated both east and west. Then up both coasts. We both accepted that as we cannot disagree with that.
So I asked, what was the habitat like when they migrated over great distances. Heck if we know, but it had to be continuous and favorable, to getula. When a species migrates they most likely were of one type. We do know that north America was a lot wetter then. We both agree that in wetter habitats, getula or dark, striped, etc. In dryer habitats, getula are lighter, banded etc. All across the country. So if that's anywhere near right, it ancestor most likely was a dark striped or patternless animal. I will bet, it did not look like splendida of today.
My opinion is, these animals with unstable patterns and colors are a result of phenotypic pressures that occur in marginal habitat. They are not products of recent intergration, but products of intermediate habitat coupled with genotypic abilities. Genotype is the genetic possibilities each animal, local holds, what is expressed is phenotype. Which is what selection pressures allow. end part 1

In short, getula derived from a common ancestor, and spread across north America. Then due to climate change(drying), suitable habitat shrank and left pockets of getula that evolved into separated types(was subspecies) These pockets went thru periods of minor expansion, and major contraction, most likely many times. The key here is, there has not been expansion for thousands of years, which means, recent intergration is highly unlikely. So if these populations have not had expansion for a thousand years, 500 hundred years, heck even 200 years, they cannot be intergrades, but are a product of genotype and unstable(changing) habitat.
All in all, it doesn't matter, which is why Hubbsy and I do not fight about it, we talk about it, The animals, are what they are, no matter what we think. Its merely fun to think about how they got here and what they are. end part 2

currently this area where splendida, cal kings and Black kings separate, is under a 18 year drought. With that, phenotypes are changing. In areas of marginal splendida, they are now banded kings. In areas of Black kings, there are splendida, etc. The dominate patterns are migrating to xeric colors and patterns, and riparian areas where black kings occurred are drying up. While this is occurring, there is no spreading of populations, so intergration is highly unlikely. What we have is in areas of unstable habitat, the genotype allows for the expression of past colors and patterns. Anyway, thanks for the call Brian, its always fun. Dang I would like to get Hubbs drunk. That could result in crazy stuff.

thanks for these posts. good info to think about... i love having things to think about.

in regards to the original getula coming up from mexico and spreding across the US. Do you think that form stayed the same as it spread across the US and all of the country was basically the same as far as habitat and after establishing a range then began changing as habitat changed? Or do you think that original version slowly changed while spreding as it encountered new habitat to adapt to?

I guess there's no way to know how it happened, just curious on your thoughts.

I think if animals A all became B,C,D, and E independently then there could be something to intergrades. However if animals A existed and some became B and some of B became C and some of C became D, etc.. as adaptations to new habitat occured then intergrades dont make much sense and the forms of kings we see today are just what they are and not a mix of two ssp. If thats the case, trying to classify them into 6-7 ssp (or less) seems silly because there are countless isolated versions of kings out there.

fun to think about (at least to me)

So if these populations have not had expansion for a thousand years, 500 hundred years, heck even 200 years, they cannot be intergrades, but are a product of genotype and unstable(changing) habitat.

..and herein lays the rub.

so what you are both saying is you BOTH don't really now.. HA HA HA HA~!
-----
FR quote:
"Doing the same things over and over expecting to learn something else, is the definition of insanity"

"know"

I am the typo king.. If only there was an edit function on KS
-----
FR quote:
"Doing the same things over and over expecting to learn something else, is the definition of insanity"

Of course we don't know, I asked, does anyone have proof they are intergrades, which is a produce on one type mating another. I posted the definition of intergrade. Nothing has shown they are. They are populations that have been isolated for long periods of time and breed themselves. So they cannot be intergrades. These populations apparently have a wide genotype and produce a variety of color and pattern types.
The assumption of intergrades would mean that where we grew up, SoCal, would have one pattern type of king. If they could move 10 miles, or 30, it would mean, all kings in SoCal would interbreed and be exactly alike. but they don't and are not alike.
Now consider where I live where its very harsh.
ALso, its not about right or wrong, Without knowing what occurred in the past, we cannot be right, but we sure can talk about it. Watch out for the tiger sharks sir

"Watch out for the Tiger sharks sir."

-----
FR quote:
"Doing the same things over and over expecting to learn something else, is the definition of insanity"

>>"Watch out for the Tiger sharks sir."
>>
>>
>>-----
>>FR quote:
>>"Doing the same things over and over expecting to learn something else, is the definition of insanity"
-----
http://southerncaliforniakingsnakes.weebly.com/

That explanation (communities expressing a variety of "patterns" is interesting and clears up alot.

reako45

I really like Hubbs, he knows that. But he is dismissing Biology. The theory of common ancestor, and both Genotype and phenotype.
Its simple biology that phenotypic pressures selects for color and pattern. Changes in that, will indeed modify color and pattern. What Hubbs does not consider is environment/weather/climate is in constant change and it has for thousands of years. Wet to dry, dry to wet, the constant change of plant cover type, the constant imbalance of predators.
The problem is, TIME. Hubbs makes up his mind with the amount of time he has herped kings. The problem with that is, these kings have been here and doing what they are doing for tens of thousands of years. Hubbs window of time is less then a second, in the existence of getula.
Genotype, is the bag of possibilities that an individual and colony has to draw from. The phenotype of what the current pressures allow.
Hubbs and I both agree that stripe kings dominate low wetter grassy areas and banded kings dominate open hillsides, deserts, dryer areas, also Cal black kings are low lying wetter grassy areas. As is Black kings here. Desert kings are products of higher grasslands here in So Az. As are Mohaves. These areas of confusion are areas of unstable habitat, and often have mohaves and diamondbacks. As well as, goofy kingsnake patterns. In SoCal, you guys would simply call them abberants. So I ask, why are they not abberants here? What Hubbs is dismissing is habitat type. Which I feel is very very important.

I spoke with Hubbs yesterday (after he talked with you) and he said he does not dismiss the idea of habitat playing a card in morphology, but the intergrade genes have been present in those populations for so long he doubts the makeup of the area could change from drought cycle to wet cycle today. He feels that some patterns may just not be visible under drought conditions because the populations get reduced for awhile, then bounce back when conditions get better.

He also said that no one really knows where the original kings came from. Blaney's theory is just a theory. for all we know, aliens could have planted all our species on earth millions of years ago and let nature take it's course. We might just be a small interplanetary botanical and faunal garden experiment.

How's that for a theory...as good as anything else...

We might just be a small interplanetary botanical and faunal garden experiment.

Yes, let's accept any other weird theory except for a creationist. Ruling out a creator of the universe makes us seem so much smarter and more accomplished.
-----
FR quote:
"Doing the same things over and over expecting to learn something else, is the definition of insanity"

The aliens would have been the "creators"...maybe sent from God to create life here...I don't see your point.

The aliens would have been the "creators"...maybe sent from God to create life here...I don't see your point.

Aliens.. created by God.. to create life on planet earth..

okay

So after the aliens put the original kingsnakes (or milksnake) here it evolved over thousand million years .*thumbs up~*

-----
FR quote:
"Doing the same things over and over expecting to learn something else, is the definition of insanity"

Yes, it actually does make us look smarter.

Until something better comes along, I'll stick to Blaney's scenario though...
-----
I'm Dutch. Somebody shoot me.

Not even considering how the animals got there, or if God himself put them there.
Hubbs admits it may have been ten thousand or more years since they possibly intergraded and since that time, have not intergrades. Sir brings up many things, like what where they ten thousand years ago? and why did Hubbs pick that number? As before they evolved into different pattern types, they were one type snake.
Also his theory dimisses selection pressures when it comes to color and pattern and that is wrong, totally wrong. We know selection pressures are highly envolved in color and pattern.
This type problem has been solved before. With alterna and Blairs, they were different subspecies until that fella at UofA, collected a gravid female that had both types. Or when Banded kings were Boyles kings, and striped kings were striped kings. Then they discovered a banded could have both types, and so could a striped. So back to one type. I have to ask, why don't we call aberrant kings intergrades???? They are no different then the situation here. A Black king here is the striped version of Splendida, and the tweeners are in some areas, much like aberrants are in SoCal.
I asked Hubbs about scale counts, if I remember correctly, there was some manner of cline. He said, Huh?
So we are back here where there is no evidence of recent or current intergration. The animals are physically exactly the same. Some ares have mostly one type, other areas, have another, and to some degree, all areas have aberrants, with some areas having them more commonly. What is easy to see, it can be directly related to habitat type. Grasslands, have splendida, arid desert, banded, wetlands have the dark animals of both, and in a few places its extreme to a point of melanism. With aberrants in unstable habitat. The key is, these animals have no physical differences what so ever. To you two, Its all about religion. end pt 1

Religion means, to believe in the unproven, its not about Hubbs(the kingsnake god) or any god. Simply believing is what is not cannot be proved. I have a religious belief in Toyota trucks.

To that point, you two have a religious belief in a set pattern and are not considering, one, they are kings and kings across their range express polymorphism. Two, natural selection, three any value in genotype. and lastly habitat alone.
Because western getula express a million color and pattern variations, say every fifty miles. We all know a brea king from a long beach king and a San Diego king etc etc. Color and pattern changes quickly due to localized selection. The question is, what about the snake? The snake is everything else about the snake. Scalation, structure, the biology etc. In this case, these animals here are exactly the same. Across the entire range, there are small minor differences. Yet, easily identifiable as getula. So give me something solid guys, something other then color. End part 2

Hubbs is the god of kingsnakes, I am a mere apostle. One of my jobs as an apostle is to remind hubbs of things he forgot.
About the time "god" was seeding north America with getula, he was also experimenting with certain ‎Hallucinogenic plants. To make it short, he lost certain time periods of memory. It did take a while and lots of testing. So please forgive him. Hubbs had a particularly hard time with those mushrooms. There are still problems with them. And Peyote, have you ever wondered why we know so little about Mexican kings, Hubbs forgot that entire period. And he's afraid to go back. Everytime he thinks about going to mexico, he has relapses and goes to Kansas instead, there he clicks his heals and dreams of yarn art(Huichol art)

LMAO
good stuff FR
I to am an apostle of getula ... "doubting thomas"

,,,,,,,,

,,,,,,,,,,,,,

-----
Morphs... just like baseball cards BUT ALIVE, how cool is that???

my website www.barmollysplace.com

LOL

I believe the correct amount of years Hubbs said to you was thousands to millions of years ago, at least, that's what he said he said to you. You seem to have selective memory when it comes to conversations. And once an intergrade zone is established by the mixing of genes, phenotypes, etc., it is always an intergrade zone. Ask anybody...

That is wrong sir, A genetic stand alone group is not intergrades.

What about them all being the same, before they were different. What does that mean?

True, but this also implies that only specimens found within such an intergradation zone, actually qualify as intergrades.

The very moment an intergrade population becomes detached from the hybrid zone, it will follow it's own evolutionary course.

The Gulf Hammock Ratsnake, the Yuma Kingsnake, the Coastal Plains Milksnake, whether we recognize them as such or not, they are real enough for evolution.
-----
I'm Dutch. Somebody shoot me.

By definition, an intergradation zone becomes established by secondary contact, implying it can only be a temporary situation. Populations become disconnected by areal contraction, or the zone becomes a cline. But it won't last for thousands of years, either way.
-----
I'm Dutch. Somebody shoot me.

I don't think you have a clue...

I majored in evolutionary biology, sir.

That's how clueless I am, LOL!
-----
I'm Dutch. Somebody shoot me.

Like I said...

Among those you listed, the only detached from the hybrid zone is the rat snake. The others connect with other subspecies. The Yuma is just a dark (melanistic) cal king, and might actually represent an intergrade morph between the Black king and the Cal King. The coastal Plain milksnake is either a hybrid between the Eastern King and Scarlet King (different species) or a remnant population of Red Milks that became separated during the last ice age. Or, it could just be a red form of the Eastern milk that has been altered by habitat.

The thing with areas like the ones occupied by Yuma's and Coastals, is that isolation by distance becomes part of the equation, resulting in phenotypes which are the result of natural selection, not intergradation.

When you breed a bunch of Coastal Plains Milksnakes from a certain location, you will probably end up with a lot of very similar looking hatchlings. Same story with the Yuma Kings.

Now this wouldn't be the case if the parents were collected at an actual hybrid zone, would it?
-----
I'm Dutch. Somebody shoot me.

There's no separation between Yuma's and Cal Kings or Black Kings. The habitat is continuous and made up of river valleys and desert washes and flat desert. The only thing that explains the dark pattern of the Yuma (and I have seen many, especially at Yuma itself and along the way to Tucson) is an ancient blending with the Black King, because a Yuma pattern is half way between a Black King and a Cal King. I see this as the result of intergradation. And yes, locality specific Yuma's will produce offspring that look like them, same with intergrade Speckled/Desert kings (for the most part... there are and can always be exceptions to any rule).

See, without experience in many different habitats across the range of getula, and experience with many different subspecies and morphs, a person like yourself (or even Frank) could draw some erroneous conclusions about what is going on. Whether you studied genetics in college or not...

Actually, as an evolutionary biologist I do know a thing or two about speciation mechanisms and hybrid zone dynamics. Also, the Lampropeltis getula complex has been one of my obsessions for quite a while now. So it's not like I'm shooting blancs here.

Anyway, I don't recall ever having claimed that the Yuma Kings are an isolated population. However, I did make the distinction between clines and hybrid zones, and I did suggest that the Yuma King range is positioned within a larger area of populations displaying clinal variation, rather than within the typically quite narrow margins of an actual hybrid zone. Therefore, Yuma Kings are mostly the product of natural selection, rather than intergradation.

However, part of the problem here is a matter of definition. I have no trouble whatsoever understanding your arguments, as this whole discussion really isn't that complicated to begin with. Ever considered the possibility of someone not agreeing with you? So just to make my point, let me ask you this:

How can one tell a pattern of clinal variation as an adaptive response to an environmental gradient, from a similar pattern resulting from intergradation, most likely (always, actually) also associated to an environmental gradient?

That's right, you can't, and neither can I. Not without molecular data, that is. Hence the entire point of this topic, by the way.

You're welcome.
-----
I'm Dutch. Somebody shoot me.

Let me illustrate what i said below with some pics...I know you all like pics...

This is a desert phase Cal King

This is a Black King (not pure, because it is from AZ)

This is a typical Yuma king from Yuma, AZ

This is a Greaser hyper melanistic from Los Angeles (Long Beach)

Now, you can see that there is a big difference between the Yuma and the normal hyper-melanistic Greaser. And the Yuma appears to be intermediate between the Black King and the Cal King, which just happen to have ranges next to each other.

Is this getting any clearer yet? The Greaser is not an intergrade because it occurs surrounded by other normal looking Cal Kings. The Yuma probably is an intergrade pattern because it is NOT surrounded on all sides by normal Cal Kings...it has a Black king for a southern neighbor. I really don't see why this is so tough.

Nice Kings Joe..

10 years ago I found a kingsnake, it was banded.

Fundad

Thanks, but those are Hubbs' pics. He let me use them. He can't post here. He was banned.