I agree. I'm seeing this trend to. Much of this is people like Montanucci reclassing things and making new species out of formerly subspecies of things like coronatum, or splitting off pops that were frormerly regarded as the same species. The amount of species depends on who you talk to, some may say 13, and others 18. I think this might have a lot to do with the fact that there aren't enough real new species out there to discover anymore, and biologists need work. They appear to be resorting to this DNA "lets see if we can make a new species out of it" approach.


>>I'll have to disagree with you on the simplification issue Lou. In the past few years the number of species of horned lizards has gone from 13 to 18. Wth P. goodei you can't even distinguish it from platyrhinos without a DNA test unless you have locality info. We showed some pics to the guy who wrote the article and he confirmed this to us. I thought naming species was for the purpose of distinguishing common groups for identification. This DNA thing is getting way out of line. Whats next,Are they going to start naming individual lizards as species because of DNA.
-----
www.groups.yahoo.com/group/HornedLizards
www.youtube.com/user/PhrynosomaTexas
Wichita Falls Reptile Rescue
Harvester Ants

[ Reply To This Message ] [ Subscribe to this Thread ] [ Hide Replies ]