M. sp. variegata changed to M. sp. harrisoni?

[Vinterland]

Hi there,

yesterday I read in an german forum, that M. sp. variegata has changed to M. sp. harrisoni.

Does anyone know more about that?

I cant`t find anything special about it.


Cheers

Michael

[Macca]

The Irian Jaya Carpet Pythons were seperated to M.harrisoni in 2000 in one of Hoser's papers reviewing the australopapuan pythons. However, the paper is riddled with bad taxonomy, including the describing of what I can remember to be four new genera of Aus pythons, mostly named after members of his family, as well as a large swag of new subspecies. In spite, of his large number of new descriptions, I don't think there is a single one in this paper that can be condiered valid.

The only diagnostic difference he has stated to seperate it from the Aus M.s.variegata (Top End carpets) is that they are seperated by water, although a range of other species are found on both Papua and Aus. He also stated that they tend to have lesser sub-caudal scales but his sample size was too small, which means that this is totally insignificant.

Hence, unless further work serperated the two, feel safe referring to the West Papuan or Irian Jaya carpets as M.s.variegata.

[Vinterland]

Hi Macca,

thanks for explanation.

That´s what I think before.
It means only the papuan variegata, not the Darwin variegata.

Someone doesn´t read the text under the pics correctly.


Cheers

Michael

[GetCoiled]

there are about 5 morphological features that distinguish the 2 taxa.
Cheers
Stef

[waruikazi]

Originally Posted by GetCoiled

there are about 5 morphological features that distinguish the 2 taxa.
Cheers
Stef

What are they?

[GetCoiled]

Sorry 4...as Mense stated in his German book about Carpet pythons...

1) variegata head pattern is not that pregnant like with harrisoni (harrisoni has mostly a "patched crowned head pattern") and with matured variegatas the head pattern goes often lost or goes unclear.

2) a lot of variegata goes bigger (gain more mass) then most harrisoni does

3 and 4) differences between this 2 subspecies by the pholidodis: variegata has 259 - 295 ventralia (average 285), 81 - 91 subcaudalia (average 83 -87 /see page 110) harrisoni has 239 - 273 ventralia (average 263) and 71 - 81 subcaudalia (average 76) with the subcaudals there is only one overlapping ( what is known right now) with the count 81

Cheers
Stef

[Chimera]

I thought I'd seen a similar discussion to this before:

Irian Jaya Carpet Pythons

There are many more people other then Ray Hoser who consider Irian Jaya carpets to be M. Sp. Harrisoni