Well Goon, its for people like you that I fight this fight. I personally have no concern what Marks calls them or thinks they are.



I guess if I am to be real honest, and I know I can be honest with you. I would tell it like it is, instead of beating around this stinking bush.



I do not think Mark has done any studies what-so-ever, he simply gathers papers and then makes lots of assumptions on them. If he has done anything on his own, again he does not show it, or even show that he understands anything about populations.



If he has, then he should show them, the numbers man.



Lets talk about the papers. Most papers are simple species reports. To report, is to convey an observation. Like, we found a V.a.sp. took notes if any, made measurements and in a bottle it goes. End of that story. The authors of reports do the best they know how. But in most cases, these reports are simple and strait forward, they are not meant to draw any conclusions from. Just this was here.



Now take thirty of these reports from different localities. Now you have thirty reports, of animals that are being called V.a.sp. These papers again are not meant to draw conclusions from. They are a report of locality. They may include other data, some do, some do not. They may show habitat type.(remember this) The reason some do not is, most voucher reports are not taken by monitor guys or even reptile guys, they are normally taken by other biologists, even non-biologist. Which means they may leave a lot to be desired. Even, improper identification. But that is besides the point. I mention this to make you aware of possibilities.



So Mark gets these papers and makes conclusions from them, which was not their intent. Doing that is still fine. No problems yet.



Remember, we have all agreed they are V.abigularis. These papers do not tell how these animals are exsisting in this particular habitat. Or if this habitat is different then others containing V.abigularis. Nor do most of these papers give stomach contains or reproductive condition.



How all these papers relate to eachother is extrapolated(=to extent known data points) by mark. Which again is ok. Heres where he fails. His job is to then prove what he extrapolated to be true. This is the body of the work. This is the study, not the extrapolations. Has he shown any actual studies at all, done by him to prove his point. He has not shown that. He publishs extrapolations, kinda why they get published in Reptiles mag, and not a herp journal.



The type of study he thinks hes doing is very expensive and time consuming. You must take series of monitors from each local and test the locals between them. You must plot the differences and similarities, to exact local. Etc etc. This then is suppose to give a clear picture of what species is doing.



Next;



Now lets look at the animals, He freely admits they are different colors and patterns. But he takes no importance in that. While colors and patterns are fast changing chararteristics, they have reason to change. Something caused them to change. So what caused them to change? Do they change, for no reason or just because?



Well, color and pattern, tells you something is different in their habitats. This something caused them to change how they survive.



I could go on and on, about this and I normally do, but its so simple, what caused them to "change their coat" as Mark said, also causes other changes, such as behavior. Different prey, different shelter, different elevation, different plant assoiation, equals different animal. Yet we agree they are still albigs. Please understand, science is still unclear as to how long and how much seperation it takes for these populations to be different species.



We as keepers, recognize these behavioral differences and structural differences. Even if the skull is, more or less the same.



To us, these differences are important because, in part, we are not privy to their actual enviornment.



let me use an analogy, I work with montane rattlesnakes, montane means, lives in mountains(high elevation). These rattlesnakes were more widespread went times were wetter. But as the land dryed out(desertification) they could only exsist in the wettest parts of their former ranges, mountains hold water. As the years passed, these remnant populations adapted to elevation and move higher in the mountians.



To understand this, our mountians are seperated by habitat that is not hospitible to them. So what we have remaining is, islands of populations, that are seperated from eachother each slightly different then the other. As time goes by, each of these populations adapt to their particular range and its resources.



While these populations are still called, Crotalus willardi, some have adapted behaviorally to act very differently and feed on different prey and occupy different nitches. So much so, that they acted more like other species of rattlesnakes.



How this applies to albigs is strait forward, large areas of inhospitable habitat separates or had separated, these populations by the changing of the enviornment, in this case, again drying(desertification) leaving populations of closely related monitors, that have been seperated for X numbers of years. So now, these populations occupy, high elevations, low elevations, dense grown, sparse growth, different prey items, different soils, different season types(equatorial to non-equatorial), different temps. Now, with that in mind Goon, how on earth could they be the same.



In my poor little desert rat brain, his approach with this, is the same as his approach to breeding monitors, he talks about it, he knows about it, he give advice on how to do it, but has never done it to any extent. Again, he claims two clutches in 22 years. Thats proof of misunderstanding of varanids, not of understanding. His papers are the same, in terms of baseball, he does the windup, but fails to throw the pitch, then claims a strike. Thanks FR

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