Caissaca

Hi. I made the change about being found in Siwa oasis because I'm currently living here, at the foot of a mountain on the edge of the desert, and I've seen two specimens which I think are coloratus. I admit I know nothing about snakes at all so apologies if I am incorrect. My cat, who was born in the wild here, attacked one of the snakes and killed it-an amazing sight. Then her mother, who is still living wild, took the snake and ate half of it. I have recovered the skin from the other half, and because I was so fascinated I looked it up on the Internet to try and identify. 163.121.179.226 (talk) 11:20, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for your help on King Cobra! --Mike Searson (talk) 15:06, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Bothrops jararaca

Hi Caissaca, I saw your recent revert of my last revert to Bothrops jararaca. Please read this and then maybe we can move forward in a more constructive manner. Cheers, --Jwinius (talk) 21:40, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Jwinius, thanks for your reponse, I had not seen your discussion with UrsoBR. I obviously appreciate the principles of using referenced information for Wikipedia, just as I appreciate your tremendous efforts for the many snake articles you have worked on - they stand out through their professional standard. In this particular case, though, I don't think it's so much a matter of the principle of referencing information as simply one of wrong spelling - the spelling of the two common names is a simple matter of correct Portuguese, not of the principles of referencing (the accent on Mucuri may be a different matter, and I note that Brazilian websites disagree, even within themselves, on this aspect). I would agree with UrsoBR that we should not present information that is unambiguously wrong, irrespective of the source of the error.

The idea of deleting some of these common names makes a lot of sense, as most are of very limited use. In the Brazilian herpetological literature, Bothrops jararaca is given the common name "jararaca", the other Bothrops have other common names. Among the general population, the main name for most Bothrops in Brazil is "jararaca", the others are just local variations on that theme. Jararaca-do-rabo-branco refers to the white tail displayed by the juveniles of many Bothrops. Jararaca-do-cerrado is probably misleading and more applicable to Bothrops moojeni and other species found in the cerrado (B. jararaca is mostly found in forests), and caissaca is usually used for Bothrops moojeni, not B. jararaca, at least in the Brazilian literature (I am sure local farmers may use the terms differently).

Best, Caissaca (talk) 06:58, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Primary stock

Once again, thanks for your response to this question on the Subspecies talk page. If you can spare a little more time, though, I'd like to ask for your opinion on a related matter.

First of all, I believe what you say in this matter is correct. It makes sense and it agrees with what a number of others at WP have also said in other discussions that I've been part of. I must admit, however, that those discussion were caused in part by my own misunderstanding of this issue. The last time it was a debate where some people wanted to create separate articles for subspecies, including nominate subspecies, while others did not want to create articles for subspecies at all. I don't like either of those solutions.

I've wrestled with the problem of writing and organizing natural history articles at WP for the last two years, wondering how best to organize all the common names, scientific names, taxonomic synonyms and images of each taxon. I believe that what we need most of all is a practical solution. Considering the way WP works and how so many (sub)species are already described in the literature, I think the best method is is to have separate articles for all subspecies, except for the nominate subspecies, the information for which should be included in the species article. You can find my reasons here. What do you think of this approach? --Jwinius (talk) 15:48, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi,

Thanks for your comments. This is a very difficult issue altogether. I certainly agree with your standpoint on listing by scientific name rather than common name. The copperhead article could get interesting if half the contrbutors are writing about Agkistrodon contortrix and the other half about Austrelaps australis.

I can see your reasoning for the idea, but I am less enthusiastic about having different articles for subspecies, and only giving information about the nominate form in the species article. There are several reasons for this.

First, the nominate form does not have any special status (least of all biologically), and may only represent a very small proportion of the total range of the species - for instance, in the case of Crotalus durissus, the nominate form (C.d. durissus) is only found in parts of the Guyanas, whereas most of the vast S. American range is occupied by other, often more widespread subspecies. I suspect most readers will want to have general information on the species, not just specific info on that one set of populations. If one does want to go down the "a page for each ssp." route, then it would be more logical to have one page for the species as a whole, and a separate page for each ssp., including the nominate form - there is nothing special about it.

Second, as a matter of principle, much of current taxonomy is more than a little sceptical about the concept of subspecies and its usefulness. Most contemporary taxonomists look for evidence whether sets of populations are on an independent evolutionary trajectory or not - if they are, they are treated as species, if they are not, they are not give taxonomic recognition. If the aim is to have the Wikipedia reptile articles based on current taxonomic thinking, then separate articles for every subspecies are, if anything, a retrograde step (although I appreciate that most of the readership of WP does not consists of prefessional scientists).

Third, a very large number of recognised subspecies are either sets of populations recognised on the basis of some superficial feature of colour pattern and scalation, which do not withstand analysis with more comprehensive datasets, or they are entities that would under many currently applicable criteria be considered as separate species. Every phylogeographic or in-depth morphological analysis seems to result in various subspecies being binned, and others being elevated to species level, and that trend is continuing apace. Encouraging the creation of articles for each subspecies is going to create a lot of headaches every time a new revision appears. I know that this also applies to other types of articles, but subspecies articles are just asking for trouble.

So, in a nutshell, I am not all that favourable to the idea of separate subspecies articles. If we have to have them, then I would separate the overall species article from all other ssp. articles, including that of the nominate form.

Just my $.02 .... since I do not spend much time editing on Wikipedia, I obviously don't have your experience of the realities of WP editing, which may well be less than ideally matched to the ideas I expressed above.

Caissaca (talk) 21:38, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

You're certainly not alone in your opinion, but it makes sense, which is why I'm concerned. However, I can't think of any good way to convert that into a practical WP article structure. What I like about the current structure of the snake articles that I work on, in which the nominate subspecies is described in the species article, is that it's always easy to figure out which descriptions, images and names should be associated with which articles. If we were to create articles for nominate subspecies, it would not be possible to define the contents of the species articles as clearly, which would result in many pointless debates. It doesn't help that many sources describe species simply by describing each subspecies. On the other hand, if we were ban articles on subspecies, it would become equally difficult to manage the names, images and descriptions of the subspecies within the species articles, resulting in more ado about nothing. --Jwinius (talk) 17:59, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Bothrops asper

Hi Caissaca, Sorry, but after a check I now see that Ecuador is listed in McDiarmid (1999); a fact that I had missed it the first time around. Phew, that was beginning not to make any sense! However, the information from Campbell & Lamar (2004), describing how the range apparently extends further south in Ecuador than preciously supposed, is correct. And, I see that I made another small error. However, if you have references for its occurrence in southern Ecuador, down to El Oro, older than Freire-Lascano & Kuch (1994), or even references for Peru older than Tello-V. (1998) and Pesantes-Segura (2000), then please add this information. Remember, however, that the presence of B. asper in mainland South America was controversial for some time: it was previously thought that these snakes were actually B. atrox. Cheers, --Jwinius (talk) 23:00, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that = the whole story on asper & atrox in S. America is a mess, especially when it comes to the Venezuelan and Trinidadian Bothrops, which are prob. not asper. However, while we wait for aa publication that sorts it all out, I guess one might as well go with the textbook version....

Why do I not find this news surprising? If you have a good reference somewhere that expands on this point of view, by all means add it to the article. Cheers, --Jwinius (talk) 21:29, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Watchlist

Hi Caissaca, Recently, it seems that you've been reasonably active with the snake articles. This makes me happy. Would you by any chance be interested in a copy of my watchlist? It's almost only on the subject of snakes, mostly the Viperidae, and you can copy and paste it into your own raw watchlist. If you're interested, email me your email address and tell me what your preferred format would be (DOS or Unix format, zip or gzip, etc.). Cheers, --Jwinius (talk) 23:50, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi, thanks, that would be great. Preferrred format would be DOS zip to [email protected]. Cheers, Caissaca (talk) 10:22, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

You got it! Cheers, --Jwinius (talk) 21:41, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Leiopython

Hi Caissaca, Some anonymous user has been making edits to the Leiopython again. In the past I suspect that some of these edits may have been made by Raymond Hoser himself, since they came from Australian IP addresses and were so defensive of his work. Some of the last edit will also have to be reverted -- especially the stuff about the common names (unreferenced) -- but, this time I think I'll leave the first changes up to you. Cheers, --Jwinius (talk) 00:25, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

The changes regarding size and colour are referenced and seem correct and are referenced. The common name info is also correct, but unfortunately not referenced... Caissaca (talk) 07:11, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Right. I've reverted to the last version of the common names hatnote. The edit summary should explain things. For now, it should be sufficient that Luigi D'Albertis is mentioned in the introduction. Cheers, --Jwinius (talk) 13:19, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

The contributor responds! Take a look at this. Cheers, --Jwinius (talk) 12:17, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, now that we're on the subject, might it be a little early to follow Schleip (2008) and say that six species are currently recognized? After all, his article was published less than a year ago, and like I was just saying to him on my talk page regarding Brohammerus, it might be more prudent for us to first wait and see what others what others think of his work. By the way, I don't have access to Schleip's publication, but here's his website, Leiopython.de, which looks very informative. Cheers, --Jwinius (talk) 17:53, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

For species descriptions, I would advocate taking them at face value so long as they are published in a serious scientific journal. Schleip's species were published in a major herp journal, so I think we should accept them. If questions are raised later, then we will have to change the articles - that's part of science. The issue with changes in generic affinities is a bit more difficult, in that (i) this morning's phylogenetic study may be overtaken by this afternoon's, with different implications for nomenclature, and (ii) even given a single phylogeny, interpretations on how this should be translated into nomenclature vary between workers (e.g. Trimeresurus group, North American rat snakes, Bothriopsis vs. Bothrops, etc.). So, although Rawlings et al.'s study of python phylogeny looks pretty solid, a case could be made to leave the main retic and Timor python articles as Python reticulatus and P. timoriensis, and have redirects from the corresponding Broghammerus names, and a "Taxonomy" section in each species account describing Rawlings et al.'s conclusions. Just my $.02... Caissaca (talk) 12:37, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

This sounds like excellent advice to me! Cheers, --Jwinius (talk) 13:39, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

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