Hierophis carbonarius

That´s the place to discuss on sytematics, distribution, etc.

Re: Hierophis carbonarius

Postby Berislav Horvatic » Sat Apr 25, 2015 1:37 pm

Michael Glass wrote:Bero, regarding the carbonarius issue, I kind of have exactly the same questions in mind that Niklas raised.
I was just teasing him because of the term "doctoral dissertation" since a dissertation is by definition a
Phd/doctoral thesis. So stating doctoral dissertation is like the white polar bear.

If that be the case, I'm disappointed and have to disagree... A "dissertation" is NOT automatically a "Phd/doctoral thesis"
- "by definition", as you would have it - not in my language (idiolect) at least... A "doctoral dissertation" is (has been, had
been) an accepted ("official") technical term in many languages, including German, if I'm not mistaken... (Well, had been,
perhaps, but until quite recently - at least for us who are not so young any more... I clearly remember having written up,
submitted, and successfully defended a "doctoral dissertation" in 1997... No "Bolognese" or "American" Phd shortcut, but a
real, quite German-like, doctoral dissertation...)
I thought you had actually meant something much more relevant to the present issue... and got carried away by it... but
never mind. You've already honestly apologized for having mislead me (and maybe some others as well), but now we see.
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Re: Hierophis carbonarius

Postby Jeroen Speybroeck » Wed Apr 29, 2015 5:53 pm

Arisen from travelling to herping heaven, let me just add some ideas.

The split seems solely based on the phylogenetic species concept (quote: "these clades appear to represent independent phylogenetic units (see also Burbrink et al. 2000, 2011), deserving elevation to species status"). If you value reproductive isolation and/or restricted gene flow, this is not a split you should like. Also, remember that Rato et al. (2009) showed that the archetypal phenotypes do not match the genetic clades = black animals occur in viridiflavus, as do non-blacks in carbonarius (you could compare with persa phenotype popping up in several Natrix natrix subspecies/clades).

I conclude by commending Herr Oefinger for his remark. I also wonder if a fully black species should be called melanistic, as I thought this term should rather be reserved for a morph or aberration, Bero. No one ever calls Salamandra atra melanistic. But that's probably more a semantic matter, so let's not go too much off-topic (again).
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Re: Hierophis carbonarius

Postby Berislav Horvatic » Thu Apr 30, 2015 12:21 pm

I also wonder if a fully black species should be called melanistic, as I thought this term should rather be reserved for a morph or aberration, Bero. No one ever calls Salamandra atra melanistic. But that's probably more a semantic matter, so let's not go too much off-topic (again).

Agreed, fom my full heart & mind (if that's different...). Mea culpa for having been that emotional & imprecise & unscientific & ...
Never mind, you said it all. Peace on you, and everybody else. Let's go on.
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