black tiger snake classifications

[m.punja]

Does anyone have any links to papers written going into detail on the different sub species of black tiger snakes? I understand most of the different island tigers have different scientific names and that there are black tigers on tassie and the mainland I'm just confused as to what belongs where. In Victoria we can only keep Notechis Sculatus and Notechis Ater, however I know people who keep western aus tigers as Ater when the WA musem has them classified as Sculatus. We keep all the tassie and island tigers as Ater also.

 

[m.punja]

bump

 

[wizz]

eipper will no.........

 

[shlanger]

Indeed he will know!

 

[elapid66]

he knows all

 

[m.punja]

maybe i shoulder have titled the thread, please help me scotty! lol

 

[jamgo]

tigers

i think it goes notechis scutatus scutatus ( common tiger) wa tiger notechis scutatus occidentalis so the wa normally goes on licence has common tiger has for black tigers notechis ater ater tassy tiger notechis ater humphreysi kangaroo island noctechis ater niger chappell tiger notechis ater seventyi so that or your black tigers on lic fall under notechis ater.

 

[smacdonald]

I'm not Eipper, but I'll join in anyway.

Keogh, Scott J., Scott, Ian A.W., and Hayes, Christine (2005) Rapid and repeated origin of insular gigantism and dwarfism in Australian tiger snakes. Evolution, 59(1):226-233.

In the only revision of tiger snake taxonomy two species are recognized, Notechis ater and Notechis scutatus (Rawlinson 1991). Rawlinson s scheme includes all of the mainland New South Wales tiger snakes as N. scutatus and all of the Western Australian, Flinders Ranges, Tasmanian, and island populations as N. ater. This scheme is also used by Cogger (2000). In contrast, Wilson and Knowles (1988) recognize N. ater as all black tiger snakes in South Australia and Tasmania, including the island populations and N. scutatus as all the mainland tiger snakes (including Western Australia). A number of Notechis ater subspecies also have been recognized (reviewed in Rawlinson 1991): Notechis ater ater for the Flinders Ranges (SA) tiger snakes, N. ater humphreysi from New Year Island and N. ater serventyi from Chappell Island, both in the Bass Strait, N. ater occidentalis for the Western Australian tiger snakes, and N. ater. niger for the remaining South Australian offshore island tiger snakes. Each of these subspeci c descriptions were based on few data and one of them was based on a comparison with erroneous data on eastern tiger snakes (Rawlinson 1991). Although more popular accounts have continued to recognize these subspecies, Rawlinson (1991) pointed out that only Notechis ater and Notechis scutatus were diagnosable and that even the division between the two species is somewhat arbitrary (Cogger 2000). We tested alternative topologies that re ect the classi cation schemes of Rawlinson (1991) and Wilson and Knowles (1988) and both schemes can be soundly rejected by our data (-ln greater by 46.77, P 0.036 for Rawlinson, 1991; -ln greater by 81.52, P 0.001 for Wilson and Knowles 1988). Both classi cation schemes use body size and color variation as two of the most important characteristics, but our molecular data clearly show that neither is phylogenetically useful in tiger snake taxonomy. Given the extremely small amount of genetic divergence between tiger snake populations across their range and the extremely short amount of time required for major body size shifts (and presumably color changes) to evolve, we conclude that tiger snakes comprise a single polymorphic species, N. scutatus, under a phylogenetic species concept.

There may have been other studies published since this 2005 one, but I'm not aware of any that contradict the above info.

Summary:
Just one, highly variable species, Notechis scutatus.


Stewart

 

[Jonno from ERD]

Yes, as Sexy Stew has posted, they are now considered to be the same species, which has been debated for the last 50 years.

Their old taxonomy, from memory, is as follows -

Notechis scutatus - QLD, NSW, Victoria, eastern SA.
Notechis ater ater - "Kreffts Tiger". Southern Flinders Ranges, SA.
Notechis ater humphreysi - Tasmania and some off shore islands such as King Island .
Notechis ater niger - Kangaroo Island, SA and southern Eyre Peninsula, SA.
Notechis ater occidentalis - south west WA.
Notechis ater serventyi - Chappell Island, Tas.

 

[m.punja]

interesting, thanks everyone