Talk:Crotalus oreganus

Timber rattler?

I know that timber rattler is about a species in eastern North America, but it's what we sometime call the species of rattlesnake here in BC, which AFAIK is crotalus oreganus. We do call it the Pacific rattler, but also the Timber rattler. Should I add that or do I need a citation for the usage. Also do animal pages get the Wikiproject templates for jurisdictions in their range (e.g. Wikiproject Oregon, Wikiproject Idaho etc)?Skookum1 17:50, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

In this case, definitely cite a good reference. I have no references for any other snake being called by that name other than C. horridus. As for the question of whether Wikiproject templates should apply to animal pages, I don't know, but I hope not. After all, there are many species that occur in many different countries, states, counties, etc., but take C. oreganus: what would be the point of applying at least five different Wikiproject templates to this talk page (BC, plus four US states)? --Jwinius 02:54, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Ah, of course. It's just that they're unusual in Canada....I guess, although come to think of it there's a species in Ontario somewhere, no? I know in Alberta....I'm thinking like a "small BCer" - they're a curiosity here, and only in one certain area.Skookum1 06:09, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

"parts of BC" vs "'southwestern' Canada"

I don't see why mentioning BC by name is "too specific" when individual US states are named; if crotalus oreganus is also found in Alberta and/or Saskatchewan, then the appropriate usage is "Western Canada" (note caps), not "southwestern Canada" which is a useless and also rather POV reference (long story). I reverted the change to "southwestern Canada" - if this species is in Alberta, it can be so amended to "parts of Western Canada". "Southwestern Canada" is subjective and highly testy on this side of the line as being not-relevant; "southwest of what?" - some amorphous "centre" of Canada in the Northwest Territories or Nunavut?? Please use Canadian usages for Canadian references, and not American-flavoured ones.....Skookum1 (talk) 17:38, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Testy indeed. My intention was simply to mention one or more continents or countries in the introduction. In this case, British Columbia is simply not a country. Would "extreme southwestern Canada" be okay? Otherwise just "Canada" will suffice. I like to keep specific geographic range info, such as British Columbia and individual states in the US, in the Geographic range section. --Jwinius (talk) 18:11, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

"Southwestern Canada" is not in the argot, except from people who want BC to be not-in-the-Pacific-Northwest-because-it's-Canada. The usage, if you insist, is "Western Canada", though that includes everything to the Ontario border; "and in the Canadian province of British Columbia", which is the customary usage on other Wiki pages when something applies to only one province (Canada's a huge place, as you must know). There are rattlers in southern Alberta, I'm pretty sure, around Lethbridge and Pincher Creek, maybe Medicine Hat and into the Cypress Hills of southern Saskatchewan; I don't think it's the same species, though which it would be I don't know.Skookum1 (talk) 18:26, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

This is too silly for me to waste any more time on. Have it your way. --Jwinius (talk) 21:42, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Proper geography is not silly, nor isrespecting the Canadian perspective or usage when an article mentions Canada (I note that this article didn't even bother mentioning the Canadian part of the range until I dropped by...). My point is that if the same species is that found also in Alberta, then "Western Canada" is the proper usage, not "southwewetsrn Canada". If it's only in British Columbia, the convention is to name the location by province, as saying "Canada" means a whole wider range, as does "parts of Western (or southwestern) Canada". Even in an intro line.....Skookum1 (talk) 04:17, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

You still haven't read the Geographic range section, have you? The information was always there. It's just that the summary in the introduction was incomplete. As a matter of fact, it's still missing northwestern Mexico, so I'd better fix that. --Jwinius (talk) 11:33, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

The "Pacific slope" in the table might be misleading to folks as it would lead people to think these things occur west of the Cascades in B.C. It might be good to use intermontane plateau, or something like that.--Windustsearch (talk) 07:50, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

This is one of those subjects that, I fear, could be argued about for a long time without resulting in any meaningful improvement. I think the best solution would be to produce a new article called "Pacific slope" or "Pacific versant" to explain what it is. More than a few of our crotaline articles could link to such a page. --Jwinius (talk) 09:30, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

[undent]In geography and also in regional history, "Pacific slope", often capitalized as "Pacific Slope", is a reference to the drainages west of the Continental Divide, i.e. to the area encompassed by the Columbia-Fraser-Skeena-Nass basins, the "slope" being that of the spine of the Rockies. it's also not entirely an archaic term though it was once more common. What is archaic is using "the Cascades" to mean the Coast Mountains; the Cascade Mountains in the Canadian definition today end at the Fraser River (the official name in Canada, also, is "Mountains" not "Range"). There is a legal-language usage where the "divide" between the Fraser basin and the coastal drainages shows up on maps and in certain documents as "the line of the Cascades as defined for legal purposes", because at one time "the Cascades" was a quasi-official name for the Coast Mountains (I'll come back with a BCGNIS reference that explains that). So in terms of Winddust's comment, rattlers are found on the west slope of the Cascades, namely the Boston Bar-Lytton area, i.e. the east bank of the lower Fraser Canyon from a place called the Big Slide, about 12 miles south of Lillooet, with a line from there extending northeastwards via Marble Canyon and Hat Creek to approximately Clinton and east from there to Barriere or Little Fort on the North Thompson River (maybe as far north as Clearwater I'm not sure. I'm not sure where the boundary of rattler range is from there southeastward; I know they're in Chase but no farther eastward, and also throughout the Okanagan region, particularly in its southern end; I'm not sure about Anarchist Mountain and the rest of the Boundary Country, but other than in high alpine and very high plateau the rattlesnake belt in BC takes in the areas between there and the lower Fraser. The easiest and most recognizable usage might be "portions of the Southern Interior of British Columbia"..."and the Interior of Washington and Oregon", though I don't know anything about where in those states their range ends/begins. "Interior Plateau" doesn't work well, either, as that term includes the Cariboo, Chilcotin and Nechako Plateaus which don't have rattlers. "Southern Interior of BC" includes other areas than the rattler range, but at least it's a recognizable term; either that or "in the lower Fraser Canyon and Thompson-Nicola and Okanagan-Similkameen regions of British Columbia ("and Boundary Country", if that's also the case). "Southwestern Canada" is a neologism and "geographic malapropism" though it often turns up in Central Canadian-perspective writing but it's not used in BC or by BCers, and in the sense meant by those who use it it includes "the Wet Coast" (a pun, the 's' isn't missing in "Wet")....Skookum1 (talk) 13:51, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Interior Plateau is a physiographic province and is what you'll see in technical writings. The argument against using it (they don't occur throughout it) applies moreso to Pacific Slope. Okanogan is a Washington State physiographic province, not a British Columbia one.--Windustsearch (talk) 01:24, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Don't you find it curious/absurd that a physiographic province could end at an abstract line drawn across the landscape - very similar landscape, with a common geology and part of the same drainage/montane/plateau system. If you're referring to the Okanogan Highland, it's ths same as the Okanagan Highland, which is a physiographic region of British Columbia (S. Holland, Landforms of British Columbia, BC Govt, 1976, which is the authoritative geographic cataloguing of BC's landforms and the basis of both BCGNIS and the Canadian GeoNames Database). That the US has one set of physiographic regions and Canada has another and BC has another makes this all the more complex to resolve; except physiographic regions aren't what's relevant to species. In otherr words, it all depends on whose "technical literature" you're talking about. Ecoregions are not defined by the same parameters as physiographic regions, geologic regions are different again, and weirdly enough biogeoclimatic zones aren't the same as ecoregions, and geographic regions are another matter again (geography and physiography don't always share the same defioing parameters). In the case of hte Okanagan, it's such a well-known and important geographic region of British Columbia, and an identifiable ecologic one, that your statement strikes me as somewhat silly; and Interior Plateau spans the border anyway; it can't help but do so. Unless, smoehow, nature observes the artificial border that was established in 1846 (see Oregon Treaty), which is one of the world's truly great geopolitical absurdities, as was observed at the time it was created and required an incredible amount of hassle to survey because of the terrain it bisexts. The Thompson Plateau, together with the Okangan Highland, are pretty much the defining physiographic regions in BC in which the timber rattler/Pacific rattlesnake is found ("timber rattler" AFAIK is the same species, it's just a term used when it's found at high altitudes, which in that region are typically forested though some is rangeland). In addition to the Thompson Plateau, the rattlesnake range in BC includes the northeast flank of the Cascade Range, i.e. the Keremeos and Pricneton areas, plus the southern Clear Range and the country northeast of there to the Bonaparte-Kamloops Plateaus, which are an extension of the Thompson Plateau north of the Thompson River. I know there's snake in the Kelowna area, I'm not sure about Vernon (at the north end of Okanagan Lake) but definitely once you're into the Shuswap/Thompson basin (north of Spallumcheen there's no snake in that area. Once again, I don't see why physiographic definitions are what's used in wahtever range of technical literuture you're reading, but I have to stress that academics of all kinds screw up geography all the time, especially when there's ocnflicting systems of definition; and in BC's case Ottawa and Victoria don't share teh same filing cabinets ("Ottawa"=federal government and "Victoria"=provincial government). And rest assured that the Okanagan is a recognized region in British Columbia, and a readily-identifiable "spatial object" in BC, as well as a cultural one.; when we say "the Okanagan" it refers to what lies between or along hte boundary between the Thompson Plateau and Okanagan Highlands landforms; one is west of Okanagan Lake, the other east of it. and "the Canadian Okanagan" and the "American Okanogan" share a lot in common; if US definitions end at the 49th parallel, that's national myopia applied to landforms and is really, again, quite absurd; and it so happens that BC's Okanagan Highland was named for the American Okanogan Highland deliberately by S. Holland; so whether you're meaning the Okanogan/Okanagan Country, or you're meaning the basin of the Okanogan River, or you're meaning hte Okanagan Highland, there's no way they're not the same physiographic region; and your "technical literature" needs some revision, and its authors need some education about what lies north of the border (or some effort to correlate BC, Canadaian and US systems of definition). I'll consult the BC Fish & Wildlife Branch's info on the rattlesnake, if I can find anything, and get back at some point (Fish & Wildlife is a branch of the British Columbia Ministry of Environment - I know because I used to work for the Water Rights Branch and F&W were down the hall...). i.e. for the specifics of the range, and what they use for their physiographic description, which to me would seem to be more relevant than anything in literature published east of the Rockies or south of 49....Skookum1 (talk) 13:10, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Description edits

Whoever got rid of my edits has never seen a northern pacific rattlesnake. Try Stebbins for for an example of the green ones, they can be almost entirely green. I have seen many examples with a white snout. Also, I had changed the wording on the blotches to say that they are both longer and wider than the interspaces- this is true and fitting with the photo on the page. Also, I changed the wording on the interspaces from white to light. If you look at the photo on the page the interspaces aren't white, and I have never seen an example of this animal with white interspaces. They are always of various other light colors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Windustsearch (talk • contribs) 06:55, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, that was me. It was a bit of a knee-jerk reaction to say it was vandalism, but as I've taken the trouble to explain on your talk page, the information in these articles is all carefully referenced, including the paragraph you changed, so I must ask you to be mindful of this. Also, although I'm sure you have plenty of experience with this species if you say so, we have a rule here against the inclusion of original research (WP:NOR), so describing from experience isn't allowed here unless you can quote from your own publications on the subject. (PS -- remember to sign your posts by typing four tildes). --Jwinius (talk) 00:38, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Hokay. I just consulted my Campbell and Lamar. Not only is their description not consistent with their own photos (like the description and photo here), but it appears most of the description here is blatantly plagiarized from them. I'll gather some other citations like Bartlett, Stebbins, St. John, Storm et al. and fix it- Windustsearch. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Windustsearch (talk • contribs) 01:59, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Come on: you've obviously not looked further than the latter part of first sentence. The most intact text fragment from Campbell & Lamar (2004) is: "... C. o. oreganus, has a dark brown, dark gray, and sometimes black or pale yellowish ground color." That hardly constitutes blatant plagiarism. See Wikipedia:Plagiarism. --Jwinius (talk) 03:45, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Aside from being inaccurate and supposedly a description of a subspecies on a page about a species, it's dang near word for word through the size and description sections. Changing a few words and the structure of a couple of sentences does not cut it. This really needs to be rewritten. --Windustsearch (talk) 04:07, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

This is a serious accusation that you're making that I strongly disagree with. Granted, it's true that the source is all from the same paragraph in the same book (Campbell & Lamar, 2004, p.567), so the information content should be a match, but it's hardly an identical copy. Either your idea of plagiarism is rather different from mine, or you find this funny. But, have it your way. Let's compare the two texts, starting with the original source:

Crotalus o. oreganus has a dark brown, dark gray, and sometimes black or pale yellowish ground color. There are large, dark, white-edged body blotches with uneven edges, and the blotches are wider than the interspaces between them. The lateral blotches are conspicuous on all but the darkest specimens and usually are darker than the dorsal blotches. The white-bordered, dark brown postocular stripe is usually boldly indicated and extends from about the eye to the angle of the jaw. The rings on the proximal part of the tail are about the same color as the posterior body blotches, but these become progressively darker, and the distal 2 rings, including the base of the rattle, are usually black. The snout is usually marked with a large, dark brown blotch followed posteriorly by a pale border that forms transverse bars on the supraoculars. In the same individuals from the southern part of the range the postocular stripe is ill defined and grades into the ground color on the side of the head (Pl. 892), and the dorsal blotches are large, dark, and have a relatively small pale area in the center. The venter is pale yellow, usually speckled or mottled with brown.

And, here's our current version:

The color pattern of the typical form, C. o. oreganus, has a dark brown, dark gray, and sometimes black or pale yellowish ground color. This is overlaid dorsally with a series of large dark blotches with uneven white edges. These blotches are also wider than the spaces that separate them. Additionally, there is a lateral series of blotches that are usually darker than the dorsal blotches and clearly visible on all but the darkest specimens. The first rings of the tail are about the same color as the last body blotches, but these become progressively darker; the last two, at the base of the tail, are usually black. The belly is pale yellow, usually with brown spots. A large dark brown blotch on the snout has a pale border behind it that forms transverse bars on the supraoculars. There is a dark brown postocular stripe with a white border that extends from the eye to around the angle of the jaw.

So, I would hardly call this enough of a match to be considered plagiarism. But, if you're still not satisfied, we can always ask for a third opinion to settle the matter. --Jwinius (talk) 12:27, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

We definitely have different ideas of what plagiarism is. If Wikipedia finds this acceptable, then alright. As someone who writes scientific reports and publications for a living, I can't agree. It still is problematic in that it isn't accurate and does not fit the photo provided.--76.28.238.125 (talk) 19:21, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Also, this page jumps around a lot between the specific and subspecific level, which is hugely problematic for the description. It would be best to either make the page about northern pacific rattlesnakes or the western rattlesnake species.--Windustsearch (talk) 02:57, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

As stated in the introduction, the article is basically about the nominate subspecies, which is C. o. oreganus. It is also intended to contain most of the general information on the species, while the various articles for the subspecies contain information that is unique to their descriptions. This approach has the advantage that, should all of the subspecies be elevated to full species, this article will not have to be changed much at all, except that the nominate subspecies would no longer have to be mentioned, the geographic range would become more limited, and that the subspecies table would be removed. --Jwinius (talk) 03:45, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Subspecies

I am probably being a pain here, but Windustsearch's last comment does illustrate the problems of the current system of aiming to have a page for every subspecies, except the nominate form, which is what comes up under the scientific name of the species. I know we discussed this before (User talk: Caissaca) but perhaps it needs to be revisited. Caissaca (talk) 17:12, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

That's true, but actually I was hoping we could discuss this again. Because it's important, I included a summary of our last conversation on this issue on my user page. Indeed, Windustsearch's comments here only serve to underline your point. However, even though I cannot deny your reasoning, I still feel that this article's arrangement, which is like so many others, has a definite practical value. After working on so many of them, these are the advantages that I have come to associate with maintaining separate articles for subspecies:

• When the main article becomes longer, as with Agkistrodon piscivorus, it helps to distribute the load. The main article can thus stay shorter and more manageable, while there is plenty of space to dedicate to each ssp.
• It limits the length of the synonymies in the taxoboxes. If we were to do away with ssp. articles, imagine, for example, what the result would be if the list of synonyms from Vipera berus, which is already quite long, were to be enlarged with the ones from V. b. sachalinensis and especially V. b. bosniensis.

These have been my reasons for describing the nominate ssp. on the sp. page:

• Upon the description on the first ssp., the nominate is automatically created and associated with the original description of the sp. If the ssp. is elevated, its article is renamed and only a minimum number of changes have to be made to the species article. Of course, if it is synonymized, the ssp. article will have to be merged into the sp. article, which does require more effort.
• It works better with taxonomic synonyms. When attempting to associate articles with older synonyms -- synonyms that were created before the point at which various ssp. were recognized -- it is not always clear whether the old publication it represents is a description of the entire population, or actually matches the nominate. With the current approach, it is not necessary to make that choice.
• It works better with images. When there are many ssp. and plenty of images available, there never has to be an argument about which image(s) are to feature most prominently in the sp. article, or where to put the images for the subspecies.
• Many books are written like this anyway. I don't see it as a coincidence, for example, that in the description of each sp., Campbell & Lamar (2004) start with the description of the nominate, after which the other ssp. are described, sometimes only in passing.

Obviously, any decision for change will have to be weighed carefully the advantages of the current arrangement against those of the new approach. This should not be taken lightly, because the total number of articles arranged like this currently numbers about 500 (granted, not all involve ssp.) and we would want for the new arrangement to last at least as long as the old one -- preferably longer -- so it had better be good. --Jwinius (talk) 20:35, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I understand the conundrum. However, the description as it stands is a rather awkward mix crossing the specific and subspecific levels and is probably confusing to people who don't know how taxonomy works. Klauber's 64" record is a northern pacific rattlesnake- which is the largest subspecies of western rattlesnake. Also, a description of the nominate subspecies is not representative of the species, and the entire rest of the page is about the species. It might be better to describe both the species in general and the nominate one, or to just describe the species in general and have separate sections or pages for each subspecies.--76.28.238.125 (talk) 19:16, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Please allow me to elucidate further. I have no doubt that this article can be improved, especially to clarify when the description applies to the sp. in general and when to the nominate (northern pacific) in particular. My point is, however, that many books with sp. accounts deal with ssp. in precisely this manner. Above, I mentioned Campbell & Lamar (2004) as an example of this, but perhaps that wasn't correct. Much better examples of this are Spawls et al. (2004), Mallow et al. (2003), Spawls & Branch (1995), Steward (1971) and Street (1979), all of which give detailed accounts of the nominate, followed by much shorter accounts of the other subspecies that state only how they differ from from nominate.

On the other hand, upon closer inspection it looks like Campbell & Lamar (2004) is in fact a better example of a book that first offers a general account of the entire sp., after which, shorter specific ones of varying lengths are given for each ssp., including the nominate (which is always mentioned first). Gloyd & Conant (1990) is an example of a third approach that involves describing each ssp. in full, while making little effort to describe the species in general (unless it is monotypic).

In summary, after studying a number of the publications in my possession that attempt to systematically describe groups of species, searching specifically for examples after which to model our articles I have managed to identify three basic structures:

1. A detailed sp. account, followed by shorter, separate accounts for each ssp., including the nominate. The ssp. accounts are shorter and usually incorporated into the main article for the sp.
2. A minimal sp. account, followed by detailed, separate accounts for each ssp. The ssp. accounts are long and each has its own article.
3. A detailed account of the nominate, followed by shorter, separate accounts of the other ssp. The ssp. accounts are shorter and usually incorporated into the main article for the sp.

My approach here, as well as in all of the other articles I've worked on, has been to employ a combination of the second than third forms: a detailed account of the sp. featuring the nominate, together with shorter, separate accounts for the other ssp. At the moment, I think the best example of this is Agkistrodon piscivorus. Of course, you could say that the confusion in this article is a reflection of a wider structural problem with the whole series, but it may also be that the overall structure is fine and that only this particular article is in need of improvement. So, wanna help? The latter is easy to change, the former is not.--Jwinius (talk) 22:37, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Another comment. When I first started to spend more time writing for Wikipedia in 2006, it was to work on the viperine articles. For this purpose, the first new book that I bought was Mallow et al. (2003), followed by Spawls et al. (2004), Spawls & Branch (1995), Steward (1971) and Street (1979). It's no coincidence that all of these books are written according to the third structure described above. In my opinion, it is much easier to adapt source material that is written according to the first and second structures to the third as I have often done, than it would be to adapt those written according to the third structure to the first or the second. The problem is that with books written according to the third structure, in the main account for a species it is never as clear which parts of the description can be applied to the species as a whole and which parts apply only to the nominate. Therefore, if we write these articles according to the third structure, it makes it much easier to use the information available in books that are written according to any of the three structures. --Jwinius (talk) 08:29, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I have to say that that is not my reading of those same books, at least not to the extent you are advocating here. Most of them seem to represent some kind of hybrid between your first and third scenario - very few employ anything resembling the second. In Campbell & Lamar (2004), I have not gone through every species' entry, but for Micrurus lemniscatus, to give one example, they clearly give a description for the species as a whole, followed by a listing of the individual subspecies with the distinguishing characteristics and distribution. For Crotaus oreganus, they actually very clearly do NOT provide a general description based on the typical form, but provide separate descriptions for each of the subspecies they recognise. For Crotalus durissus, they give a description of the species as a whole, and then list the subspecies with their (supposed) distinguishing features and distribution. For Agkistrodon piscivorus, they provide a description of the entire species, but differentiate between the subspecies where applicable, in the one description. That makes a whole lot more sense than having the entire species' entry focussed on the nominate form, and species vs. subspecies-specific information confused. Spawls & Branch (1995) provide a mixed approach - in Naja nigricollis, they provide a species description based on the nominate form, and list the subspecies with their description immediately afterwards. On the other hand, for Elapsoidea sundevallii, they provide a brief description of the species as a whole (not any particular form), and then list the subspecies with their description. Similarly, in Mallow et al. (2004), the species description often referes to all ssp., or at least the distinguishing features of the different subspecies are listed immediately after the description of the nominate form. In all of these, the main difference compared to Wikipedia articles is that all the information on the species is found under the one heading, not scattered across mutliple pages. Most importantly, if you look up Campbell & Lamar, it is obvious what information aplies to C.o. oreganus only and what applies to C. oreganus as a whole. The Wikipedia Agkistrodon piscivorus article is better from the point of view of structure, but to my mind, having multiple articles for multiple subspecies is not all that useful - all that info could very easily have gone into a single article on A. piscivorus, listing simply the distinguishing characters and distribution. A good proportion of the information n habitats etc. is duplicated in any case. Aiming for an article for each and every subspecies means making a great big rod for our own backs - especially when the very concept of subspecies is contentious, and many subspecies are going down the pan in the light of more recent studies - of which A. piscivorus is a case in point, given Burbrink et al.'s recent phylogeographic study. Caissaca (talk) 10:24, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

First of all, you'll have no further argument from me regarding the structure used by Campbell & Lamar (2004), because I've already realized my mistake and admitted this in the explanation I left yesterday. Putting aside any differences we might have in our interpretations of the other books, suppose I were to agree to change things. Apart from the fact that we would have to merge 78 ssp. articles into 40 sp. articles in the viperid series alone, we should devise a suitable strategy and format to achieve this. AFter all, it's very well-ordered now, so we should try to keep it that way. In that case the following issues should be addressed:

• In merging the data from the ssp. into the sp. articles, what would the new format look like? I guess the ssp. tables would disappear, but what would we replace it with -- separate subsections for each ssp.? Regardless, we should decide in advance on a common format for the relevant common names, taxonomic synonyms, images, description data, geographic range data, etc. Preferably, the new format should scale well within the sp. article and it should not be too difficult to undo in the event a ssp. is elevated to a full sp.
• Currently, there many hundreds of dabs and redirects for common names and taxonomic synonyms that point to individual ssp. articles. After each merge, what would we do with them? We could point them to the articles in general, or to specific subsections for each ssp.
• If the taxonomic synonyms are all merged into the same taxobox, as I've said before, some of these lists may become very long. We could perhaps compensate by using a smaller font size for them.

If we were to undertake this, the project would probably take many months, if not the rest of the year to finish. I would also be in favor of having separate subsections for for each ssp., because otherwise a substantial part of the information we have now will be lost. I have no idea what the best way would be to do this for the taxonomic synonyms. Cheers, --Jwinius (talk) 17:48, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

New species not subspecies

Hi I just read a news article that the northern pacific rattlesnake the southern pacific rattlesnake the Arizona black rattlesnake the Grand Canyon rattlesnake the Great Basin rattlesnake are actually separate species not subspecies. Herpetology (talk) 18:19, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

A news article isn't necessarily the best source of taxonomy information. If there's scientific literature to justify changes to existing taxonomy then perhaps we change the article or add a mention of it. It does seem like zoologists are always squabbling over taxonomy, but unless there's been a real breakthrough the data presented here is accurate. Can you link to the article? Connorlong90 (talk) 06:57, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

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