An interesting thing to do would be overlap a map of wolf (sub)species over that of Red deer/wapiti and see how the two mesh up.
I can't help thinking that as far as Canis is concerned, it's safe to say that Coyote, Black-backed and Side-Striped Jackals, plus Ethiopian Wolf, are good, distinct species. The rest needs more work.
My point exactly. That mix of canids, stretching from Senegal, north to Italy, and east to Burma, needs untangling. Are we really sure that we've got Canis aureus right if we're questioning C.lupus?
Odds are pretty good that Black-backed and Side-striped need *removing* from Canis, in point of fact!
Article about the taxonomy of Hanuman langurs, more splitting : Hanuman langur identity crisis might finally be solved: Study | Zee News
Or possibly lumping... If Semnopithecus entellus is the only species recognised from northern India, then it suggests that S. ajax and S. hector are not valid species. Or is it just that those populations weren't sampled?
the studies were for peninsular India, south of the range of S. schistaceus (so whether ajax and hector are considered valid or just subspecies of schistaceus is not a part of this particular study).
A new article in 'Zootaxa' looks at the taxonomy of the Black-headed Uakaris, and concludes: "The molecular and zoogeographic data on the species status of the Cacajao ayresi form are re-assessed, leading to the conclusion that, on the basis of the evidence available at the present time, this form should be considered a subspecies of C. melanocephalus. A new taxonomic arrangement is proposed, which recognizes two species, C. ouakary and C. melanocephalus, the latter with two subspecies, C. m. melanocephalus and C. m. ayresi."
I thought I would throw in quite a controversial topic: pan and homo. Should they be in the same genus? Humans are easily closely related enough to chimps to warrent them being put together. This would mean pan would change to homo because homo was described first doesn't it? So homo paniscus and homo troglodytes? What do you think.
At roughly 7 million years separated, there's no reason to warrant lumping the genera. Groves and Grubb argue for a genus split at the Miocene-Pliocene boundary at around 5.8 mya, which is well after the Pan-Homo split.
More 'splitting' of taxa; this time of monitor lizards. Here's the abstract from a new paper in Zootaxa: "We describe two new species of morphologically cryptic monitor lizards (genus Varanus) from the Philippine Archipelago: Varanus dalubhasa sp. nov. and V. bangonorum sp. nov. These two distinct evolutionary lineages are members of the V. salvator species complex, and historically have been considered conspecific with the widespread, northern Philippine V. marmoratus. However, the new species each share closer phylogenetic affinities with V. nuchalis (and potentially V. palawanensis) than either does to one another or to V. marmoratus. Divergent from other recognized species within the V. salvator Complex of water monitors by as much as 3.5% pairwise genetic distance, these lineages are also distinguished by unique gular coloration, metrics of body size and scalation, their non-monophyly with “true” V. marmoratus, and insular allopatric distributions, suggesting biogeographically distinct and unique evolutionary histories."
I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this but I didn't think it was necessary to create a new thread. I recently heard of the existence of something called the PhyloCode or The International Code of Phylogenetic Nomenclature but I'm not sure what it is exactly. Is it like the ICZN? Could someone explain briefly what it is and what it is for? Thanks
Preview of the taxonomy of some Hillstream loaches : http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/2015/f/z03926p086f.pdf
Splitting Blossomcrown-hummingbirds : Elevate the subspecies Anthocephala floriceps floriceps and A. f. berlepschi to species rank
Taxonomy of the Gray-necked wood-rail : A taxonomic review of Aramides cajaneus (Aves, Gruiformes, Rallidae) with notes on morphological variation in other species of the genus
Panther Chameleon taxonomy A study at The University of Geneva, Switzerland. which collected blood samples from 324 panther chameleons from across the entire species' distribution has concluded that there are actually 11 different species. Djordje Grbic et al (2015). Phylogeography and support vector machine classification of colour variation in panther chameleons. Molecular Ecology. Article first published online: 24 MAY 2015
So I was in the chatroom last night and we got into an interesting discussion about recent splits in Cervus. It was a little too fast (and confusing) for me so I was wondering if perhaps someone on Zoochat can tell me all the species (as google is not helping whatsoever) and maybe even add pictures to help differeniate between the species. Thank you in advance to whoever helps me.
