Reptile & Amphibian Forums

In accordance with the ICZN Code calling for wide dissemination of work of a taxonomic/nomenclature nature, I hereby advise of the recent publication of the following paper
"A reclassification of the pythoninae including the descriptions of two new genera, two new species and nine new subspecies.
Crocodilian4(3)November 2003):31-37 and 4(4):21-40.".
It can be downloaded as html from the website:
http://www.herp.net by following the relevant link.
Hard copies are available from the publisher.
Other recent papers on subjects as diverse as reoviruses in snakes, mouthrot associated with reovirus, venomoid surgery and so on are also on the same site.
Please no flames.

http://www.herp.net

Hello Ray,

well, some first comments on your new paper:

GENUS BROGHAMMERUS GEN. NOV. Hoser 2004

Your write:

Up until now, this genus has comprised just one known species, namely the Reticulated Python (Broghammerus reticulatus).

That is definitly wrong! There are already subspecies:
-Python reticulatus reticulatus (Schneider, 1801)
-Python reticulatus saputrai AULIYA et al. 2002
-Python reticulatus jampeanus AULIYA et al. 2002

You should have simply checked the EMBL database to get the information. You prehaps didn't even know about the work done as you do not mention it in the reference section of your paper!

Here the relevant papers:
--> Auliya, M. & F. Abel 2000
Zur Taxonomie, geographischen Verbreitung und
Nahrungsökologie des Netzpythons (Python reticulatus). Teil 1: Einleitung, Material und Methode, Taxonomie und geographische Verbreitung.
herpetofauna 22 (127): 5-18

Auliya, M. & F. Abel 2000
Zur Taxonomie, geographischen Verbreitung und
Nahrungsökologie des Netzpythons (Python reticulatus). Teil 2: Nahrungsökologie, Danksagung und Literatur.
Herpetofauna 22 (128): 19-28

Auliya, M.; Mausfeld, P.; Schmitz, A. & Böhme, W. 2002
Review of the reticulated python ( Python reticulatus Schneider, 1801) with the description of new subspecies from Indonesia.
Naturwissenschaften 89: 201-213

Ok, that's for that...As usual inadequate descriptions of type material...

BROGHAMMERUS RETICULATUS DALEGIBBONSI SUBSP. NOV.

In the diagnosis you write

It appears that this is a generally smaller race of Broghammerus than the typical race from further west in South-east Asia. Size and colouration as a trend separate this form from the nominate race reticulatus.

So how many specimens have you seen and did you do the measurments? What is gernerally smaller?

This subspecies is best separated from all other Broghammerus by DNA analysis and/or accurate distribution information

Ray, we had this many times before! Why don't you provide your paper with DNA analysis results. I guess they have never taken place, wright?

BROGHAMMERUS RETICULATUS EUANEDWARDSI SUBSP. NOV.

In your diagnosis you write:

This is a large race of Broghammerus reticulatus, with specimens known to exceed 6 metres. Although it is touted as a yellow-headed and docile variant, not all specimens of this subspecies have this trait. However as general trends, these factors separate this subspecies from the nominate race.

Again, how many specimens did you examine? How many of those were larger than 6 meters? And as you said yourself, not all...
So and you separate specimens from others by the fact of getting bitten or not? *lol*

BROGHAMMERUS RETICULATUS HAYDN MACPHIEI SUBSP. NOV.

In the diagnosis:

As a generalization, larger average adult size can be used to separate this subspecies from "normal" reticulatus.

What if customers service or Fish & Wildlife service finds a smuggled semi adult animal? Should they keep it until it's reached it's average size and put you into jail, then? In my opinion the average size does not make a good character for separation, it doesn't even "purporte to differentiate the taxon..." (ICZN, 4th ed.)

you continue:

The subspecies has been separated by some people from other Broghammerus by it’s iris colour, although this author has failed to find it to be a reliable indicator.

You have failed to find it th be a reliable indicator? *lol* What about most of your characters?

BROGHAMMERUS RETICULATUS NEILSONNEMANI SUBSP. NOV.

diagnosis:

It rarely has a head lighter than the body as in some other variants of Broghammerus, such as those from Bali or parts of Thailand, although light-headed specimens are known.

This subspecies is only definitively known from Mindanao and adjacent Philippine Islands this stage and is best separated from all other Broghammerus by comparative DNA analysis and/or accurate distribution information.

Where is the DNA analysis? You forgot to provide the results in your paper. Have they ever taken place?

I could continue this for quite a while until the end of your paper, Ray!

And again you worked very sloppy:

GENUS LEIOPYTHON HUBRECHT 1879 Leiopython albertisi (Gray 1842) (Eastern Irian Jaya)

Not Gray 1842! It was Peters & Doria 1878 and the specimens were found in West Irian Jaya and not in Eastern IJ. I actually told you this before write here on the forum![/quote]

But you tend to mess up authorships and dates, so we perhaps got used to it anyway.

And what about this: GENUS SHIREENHOSERUS GEN. NOV.
There was definitly no need to introduce a new genus for the Angola python, more so that you didn't also place the ball python (Python regius) into the same genus!

And as you mentioned my web site as a reference that I would support your names, I'd like to inform you that I never did so and actually the site was updated before you published and the specific parts were deleted from the care sheet. That's what can happen when using web sites as reference

Cheers,
Wulf
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http://www.leiopython.de ,
http://www.herpers-digest.com

One other little detail Ray overlooked was the genus Enygrus Wagler, 1830, type species Enygrus regius = Python regius.

Even if one accepts any need to split Python in the post-Kluge sense, this makes Shireenhoserus a synonym of Enygrus (mercifully), unless anyone feels a strong urge to put anchietae in a separate genus from all other Pythons including regius. So off Shireenhoserus goes to the Recycle Bin - **PLONK**

It's amazing what one discover by simply spending just 2 minutes looking at *the* standard work for python taxonomy, nomenclature and synonymy (McDiarmid et al. 1999, Snake Species of the World)

Cheers,

WW
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WW Home

Thanks gents for your comments.
They were in the "negative" as expected from you two, who are incapable of ever saying anything positive about anything I (Raymond Hoser) do, hence the permanent negative slant.
At least this means WW and Wulf are both alive and well and in the spirit of Christmas in a few months, I wish you both well.
I deliberately left you the forum to yourself for a week or two to throw all your criticisms at my paper and it is obvious that in material substance you both have none.
The criticisms leveled at me by the two of you are broadly as follows:
1/ Unsubstantiated claims or changes without data.
And
2/ Other people have come to the same view previously.
In terms of the first, this is offensive. In another thread elsewhere, Richard Wells refuted the same criticism of his papers by referring the same critic to the references cited. I do the same here. Had I rehashed the detail of the references in the paper itself, I may have escaped the lack of evidence claim and instead got a plagiarisation claim instead. Put another way, I would be damned either way. Hence the original criticism by Wulf isn't valid.
In terms of "2" which was WW's " Other people have come to the same view previously." Claim (paraphrased by me here), I am happy for this and I suppose that it lends credibility to my propositions in that other respected herpers have formed the same views.
I note that WW or Wulf have steered clear of openly criticizing the major taxonomic act in this paper, the naming of Broghammerus, as the new genus name for the "reticulatus" group as first proposed by Sam McDowell and others.
The placement of reticulatus and molurus in the same genus has always been questionable and hence it was inevitable that a new genus would be erected for the reticulatus group. WW is just jacked off that his adversary in the form of myself happened to be the mug who did it and that he will find his peers using the name in future.
While the name Broghammerus will come into wider usage as the obvious is recognised by other herpetologists, there's no doubt anyone who uses the name on forums like kingsnake will have to put up with the improper howls of protest and "nomen nudem" by WW and Wulf.
Cheers to you all.
RAYMOND HOSER - AUSTRALIA
New python taxa

Hello Ray,

In terms of the first, this is offensive.

Ray, you feel offended every time.

In another thread elsewhere, Richard Wells refuted the same criticism of his papers by referring the same critic to the references cited. I do the same here.

Ray, you really think that this “don’t blame me, blame the ones that I referenced…” thing justifies the errors you’ve done in your paper? It sure doesn’t!

Actually with your “Broghammerus” thing, you simly have overlooked the latest relevant work on P. reticulatus (see the citations in my first posting). One demand of scientific work is to cite every widley accepted and relevant work previously published. That’s what is the “state of the art” and from here you start to change things. Refute the recent work by providing newer facts or agree with it. Here you simply failed.
If work published is convincing, others will perhaps follow you. In this case I guess, none of the profressional herpetologists will do so.

You wrote in your paper:

Up until now, this genus has comprised just one known species, namely the Reticulated Python (Broghammerus reticulatus).

And I said that this simlpy isn’t true. That’s just fact and you feel offended :-D

There has not been a detailed analysis of scale-count variation between the regional subspecies and preliminary evidence suggests much overlap in this character between various populations.

There hasn’t been? Have a look at the paper’s from the german colleagues from the ZFMK. And if you haven’t done scale counts, it might just indicate that you not even have seen the specimens you described.

Later on in your paper you write:

Other diagnostic information for the genus Broghammerus can be readily gleaned from the literature as cited at the end of this paper, or the excellent list of sources specific for Broghammerus as cited by Uetz (2002).

Uetz (2002)? So, you’ve checked the EMBL database! By saying this, you simply have ignored the most recent work on the genus or it just wasn’t available to you. The latter would be a real pitty, because these are quite good papers :-D

You write:

McDowall (1975), pages 50-51 separated Broghammerus gen. nov. from all other Afro/Asian Pythons, which he put into the so-called "molorus group",

Well, lets see McDowell (1975:51): “All 3 New Guinea specimen of Python belong to the reticulatus Group, wich is similar in most of its feautures to the Australasian genus Liasis; also included in this group are the Malaysian P. reticulatus and Lesser Sunda P. timorensis.”

To repeat some of McDowall’s information here, this included the fact that the supralabial pits in Broghammerus gen. nov. are diagonal slits and less deeply impressed than the square pits of the more posterior infralabials; the infralabial pits are set in a distinct groove, defined ventrally by a longitudinal fold (similar to Leiopython albertisi).

McDowell (1975:50): “In the reticulatus Group, the supralabial pits are diagonal slits and less deeply impressed than the square pits of the more posteriour infralabials…”.
So this includes ALL of the species McDowell (1975) had placed into the reticulatus Group!

Broghammerus can be further separated from Python and Helionomus and Shireenhoserus gen. nov. by it’s iris colour, being red or orange, versus brownish.

As far as I remember a blood python species also has an orange iris

Had I rehashed the detail of the references in the paper itself, I may have escaped the lack of evidence claim and instead got a plagiarisation claim instead. Put another way, I would be damned either way. Hence the original criticism by Wulf isn't valid.

Well, my original criticism about your work is that you do sloppy work (errornous authorships and dates), overlooking or even worse ignoring relevant publications and providing characters that aren’t even able to “purporte to differentiate the taxon..." (ICZN, 4th ed.).
For the plagiarisation argument, think about why McDowell didn’t change some python taxonomy, but just assumed there might be a change.

Cheers,
Wulf
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http://www.leiopython.de ,
http://www.herpers-digest.com

I have one simple question that can be answered by a simple yes or no:

In many of your recent papers, you state quite empirically that the snakes can be easily distinguished by their DNA. Have you ever actually done this for any of the snakes?
-----
Dr. Bryan Grieg Fry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Australian Venom Research Unit,
University of Melbourne
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Population and Evolutionary Genetics Unit,
Museum Victoria
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.venomdoc.com

.

>>In terms of "2" which was WW's " Other people have come to the same view previously." Claim (paraphrased by me here)

Paraphrased indeed. Actually, my comment was more along the lines of "other people have already done it, but you haven't read the literature", the literature being McDiarmid et al's (1999) "Snake Species of the World", THE standard reference work for pythons, boas, vipers and basal snakes.

Writing a paper about python taxonomy without having read McDiarmid et al. is rather like writing a treatise about Christianity without having heard of the Bible.

Have a nice day, and like BGF, I'll be checking GenBank for your DNA sequences - LOL!!!

WW
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WW Home

rayhoser wrote:

"The placement of reticulatus and molurus in the same genus has always been questionable and hence it was inevitable that a new genus would be erected for the reticulatus group."

Hi, can you briefly explain why these species should not be included in the same genus? What is the evidence that make placing them in the same genus "questionable?"

Yes, refer to the detail in the paper and sources cited therein - cheers

>>Yes, refer to the detail in the paper and sources cited therein - cheers

Thats odd. I just looked at it and there wasn't any DNA evidence to be found. Could you please point out to me where it is? You didn't by chance falsify those results did you? That would be the sort of fradulent behaviour your are always rabidly accusing others of.
-----
Dr. Bryan Grieg Fry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Australian Venom Research Unit,
University of Melbourne
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Population and Evolutionary Genetics Unit,
Museum Victoria
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.venomdoc.com

No, you did not briefly explain why reticulatus and molurus should not be placed in the same genus. These two species have been traditionally placed in the same genus. They are geographically close to each other and morphologically quite close as well. Unless it can be shown that they form part of a polyphyletic assemblage or they are as disparate morphologically as Chondropython is from Morelia, there is no reason to put them in different genera. BGF intimated that there is non-existent DNA evidence in your paper to suggest that they should be in different genera. Putting aside for the moment whether such evidence exist or not, DNA evidence is recent, so it really has nothing to do with your claim in the following statement:

"The placement of reticulatus and molurus in the same genus has always been questionable and hence it was inevitable that a new genus would be erected for the reticulatus group."

Splitting seems to be have become fashionable, therefore it is "inevitable" that some people may suggest that molurus and reticulatus be split into different genera. Other than fashion, there does not seem to be any good reason for the proposed split.