Troy h recently claims repeatedly that he has found a wild caught L. alterna without a golden brown iris. I first responded by pointing out that such a find, even if it were true, does not refute the fact that L. alterna has evolved a new character that distinguishes it from its likely ancestor L. mexicana. Since iris color is likely to be a selectively neutral character, especially in an almost exclusively nocturnal species, its universal occurrence among all known populations of L. alterna suggests that it evolved by means of genetic drift within a very small founder population. Such a scenario most likely occurred when there was mass extinction of woodland dwelling L. mexicana in Texas and adjacent northern Mexico, brought on by the formation of the Chihuahuan Desert at the end of the last ice age. A single individual with a non-silvery gray iris certainly does nothing to refute the fact that all known populations of L. alterna has evolved this character.
Nevertheless, such a find would be of great interest to science, because if it is a reversal to an ancestral condition, then it shows that L. alterna indeed evolved from L. mexicana. If it is a new mutation, then it does show that iris color is liely to be neutral. Therefore I urged troy h to publish this important piece of information in a scientific journal. So far I have not succeeded. Troy h is refusing to publish his claim. That calls into question the validity of his claim. It appears that there may well be no beef, but only bull, in his claim.
