Reptile Fight Club - Justin Smith debates the use of Scientific Names in Herpetoculture

Episode Date: November 12, 2021

In this episode, Justin and Chuck tackle the topic of In this episode, Justin and Chuck Who will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!Follow Justin Smith Follow Justin Julander @Australian Addiction Reptiles-http://www.australianaddiction.comFollow Chuck Poland  on IG @ChuckNorriswinsFollow MPR Network on:FB: https://www.facebook.com/MoreliaPythonRadioIG: https://www.instagram.com/mpr_network/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtrEaKcyN8KvC3pqaiYc0RQMore ways to support the shows.Swag store: https://teespring.com/stores/mprnetworkPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/moreliapythonradio

Thank you. All right, welcome to another edition of Reptile Fight Club. And Justin Jr. with me now, as always, is Chuck Poland. All right, welcome to another edition of Reptile Fight Club. And Justin Jr. with me now, as always, is Chuck Poland. How y'all doing? Well, things good? Yeah, things are good. My Elvis wasn't very good there. Oh, you were going for Elvis.

See, exactly. It wasn't very good. Didn't catch that. Yeah, see? Totally totally it was a perfect just spot on Elvis yeah right maybe the older fatter unloved Elvis but not the not the younger hipper you know hip swinging Elvis I guess I don't know oh I don't know you've always been a hip swinging Elvis to me Ch Chugs. Oh, so sweet. Things good? Yeah, things are good, man. Yeah, I mean, I pretty much, you know, have the Tracy A just kind of I haven't introduced the other male yet, but I've I've kind of opened all the pass throughs and, and are letting kind of the animals do, do as they do. Um, so I'll probably toss in the other male here shortly and, uh,

allow the, the jockeying and, and moving around. It's funny. They, you know, they kind of, I think the two males kind of just keep each other apart, but like, you know, um, one always seems to, to be much more around the female when the other is not. So, uh, they don't, they don't combat or anything. They're pretty, I have never seen, I have never seen, I've never seen them combat. I was not aware of that, sir. Yeah. Uh, I mean, you know, mine don't, I don't, I mean, that's all I can say past that. But yeah, I've never like to the point where, you know, I was kind of like, are these, you know, is this a male into females or like, but yeah, I'm, I'm,

they're not, they don't, they don't do a combat. So. Cool. So do you have multiple, multiple females in there as well? So a couple of males, couple of females, or, uh, so I just have like a reverse trio. So one female, two males. Uh, so, um, I think, I don't know for sure, but I think I've had a single sire for both clutches. Um, I, I think the dominant male kind of is the one getting the job done, but I've seen both males with the female. So I don't know. It could be a, uh, a mixed paternity thing, uh, between these two clutches.

Uh, I just don't know. So I want to get good sheds and give them to Ben and start working all that out. I've, I kind of reached out to him and I just like, work's been super crazy and it's like, you know, just getting the sheds together and, and you know, it's kind of hard now too, because you got to pay attention to who's in shed and who it came from because they're all in the cages to kind of together. So but,

but I will, you know, get all those over to him. We'll work out, uh, paternity and then start, um, going backwards to genetically sex and then, um, and then determine, um, uh, um, relative, you know, um, my God, what is wrong with me right now? How related they are or not related they are to each other. Paternity, I don't know, whatever the word I still can't think of is. Yeah. Well, they're all at least half related from the same email. Well, and I just kind of mean like how related the parents are. So kind. No, I was just like, ah.

So you've already contacted him? Yeah, I've talked to him. You've heard back from him. Yeah, I reached out, I don't know, a month or so ago and just was like, hey, you know, what's the possibility of all this? And he's like, we could do it. You know, so I've just been, you know, kind of first thing first with it. But like I said, you know, I do pretty hands off stuff now and just kind of. Do you have sheds for all your offspring to check?

No, I really haven't been saving those. I probably should. I probably should just start saving those, but I was going to get the parents first. And, um, you know, I really haven't been feeding a lot. So the shedding has slowed down. Um, so, um, the male just shed and he had kind of a crappy shed. So I gotta get the rest of his shed off of them. And then, um, you know, um, so it's, you know, it gets a little dry here in the winter so um that's another thing i'm not really doing a lot of humidity this year so we'll see if the whole how humidity is important thing uh shakes out okay risky move well you know i mean i feel like i'm compounded risky moves this this year by changing cages and so you know if it doesn't um i mean i

guess you know multiple you're only supposed to change one yeah only supposed to change one variable so you can well but i didn't really i didn't really do anything with higher humidity the last time and it was yeah you know they were yeah so yeah so i i don't personally don't think that's like a a make or break factor but you never know i don't know you know find out find out yeah how about you dude oh yeah just uh paired the black heads i really hope this is right those those guys out yeah i need to pair a few more things are you doing doing anything different um kind of not really i mean just last year or last not i didn't get any eggs this last year because we moved well the eggs crashed because we moved yeah this last

season so hopefully she's you know ready to go this this season so yeah um and that she's settled in and everything but yeah it should be should be hopefully my year this year. So, we'll see how it goes. Fingers crossed for you, dude. I hope so, man. I'm sure. That would be a cool sight to see. Oh, yeah.

It's always great to add another species to the list, you know. Put a notch in your belt. Yep. Another notch in my belt. Well, cool. Well, let's get on with the fight in here. We've got a very special guest, uh, a friend from Texas. We, we got to herp together.

So we forged a brotherly bond in the heat of Texas. Um, so without further ado, I, uh, welcome Justin Smith to the program. Thanks for being here man you we shared smitty tears apparently according to uh and the other guys phil messaged me yeah did you hear the new npr and i said yeah and i kind of laughed i was like last i checked i was one of two or three people at the top of that hill. Yeah, that's true. A few of them didn't make it up. Man, I had to fight a black bear with my bare hands.

From like 30 yards away with my phone. It was on the move when you saw her and her cub. I was hoping to get a second glimpse, but yeah, that was like, that was a fun trip. I really want to get out there again. And I know Jake's Jake's itching to now too, after,

you know, here and everything and all that. Yeah. It's always hard to see posts of people who go there subsequent to, to our visit because they're finding like gray bands and all sorts of cool stuff. So you just have to go well we we did find some cool stuff but you know that was a blast it was what it is yeah it was a lot of it was a good trip stuff very different from what we have here at home you know down the southeast it's like another planet and so just being in something

completely what i'm not used to you know there, there's a, just the landscape and everything. I had an appreciation for all of it. So. Yeah. It's hard too, because there's so many cool areas to go herp, you know, and when I was in Arizona, I was thinking, man, it sure is nice not to have to have to walk cuts. You know, we could get into the habitat home or have some BLM land that you could go on to. And instead of worrying about getting shot on private land so um i do enjoy wheelers going 90 miles an hour exactly blowing you against the cut you know that was a little little sketchy but yeah it's a

very cool place to herb you know other than the fact that you have to stick to the roads for the most part but i did enjoy getting into some of the state and national parks you know into the habitat and seeing them kind of on the hike is is a lot funner to see them in that that way rather than you know on the side of the road of a cut but yeah big ben was awesome what they have to do yeah yeah i love that ranch rancherita yeah that was cool to get in there and see see that just perfectly camouflaged western diamond back and all the geckos and all this stuff that was cool cool well i mean most people probably know who you are but why don't you tell us a little bit about what you do in herpetoculture and where you fit in i am a fellow podcaster and host uh the herpetoculture podcast which is kind

of the original one over time it too has has evolved into a network kind of like the npr network um so it's thp and then we have snakes and stogies which is a live show that me and phil wolf do uh and then there's the chondro cast which hasn't had an episode in a very long time which was completely focused on on green trees uh And then we just recently within the last like month or two months started a one on corn snakes called corn stars. Cause that's, that's one that I got been getting heavy back into corns the last six months

or so. So it's been sort of did that for me in a sense. Cause I like to, you know, playing catch up with all the different morphs and stuff now and what better way than to sort of add, get the questions that I would normally ask in a, you know, a message or something and get that same information out there.

Cause I'm sure there's plenty of other people in that same, same boat. Yeah. That's cool. That's, that's what usually what drives me to write a book is if I get into something, I want to know more, know more about it. Um, cool. Well, uh, thanks for being here. You know, you were on a previous episode when we were in Texas and we recorded a fight club from the field. So nice to have you in the relaxed setting of your own home. And yeah, but yeah, thanks for being here. So today we're going to talk about the use of scientific names versus using common names. So I know there's, I've,

I've heard a bit of controversy about this on different trips, you know, and around different people. So there is some, you know, strong feelings both ways. So we're going to explore both sides of that issue. So as we have you as the guest, we're going to go ahead and flip the coin to see who gets to debate you today, fight you today. So, um, Chuck, you want to do the honors? Sure. Sure.

All right, here we go. Heads. It's tails. Aren't we like Owen Jones now? Yeah, I think so. I mean, why do we even flip anymore? Aren't we like 0 and 10 now? Yeah, I think so. Why do we even flip anymore? Look, I told all of you people that I don't gamble and I don't take risk. And now I hope all of you fully understand exactly why I don't do those things.

Oh, yeah. It is on display. Okay. It is almost comical, but Hey, you know, if it was different, you know,

it just wouldn't be as fun. So no, I mean, it has to be this way. All right. Well, you get a moderate for us tonight. That's that's,

that's perfectly okay. That's perfectly okay. All right, Justin, you want to, you want to call it? I got to fight a doctor though. Now. No, that's perfectly okay all right justin you want you want to call it i gotta find a doctor though now no that's all right i'm a doctor of virology we're not talking about viruses so you're

safe the last time the last time we had uh that he he he was almost in smitty tears so all right go ahead and call it in the air. Tails. It's tails. You do not have the luck of Chuck, but so you get to pick which side you want to defend. Oh, that's tough. So like I told y'all before we started, I wrote notes for both just in case. I was like, I don't want to, I don't want to put all my eggs in the, in the four baskets. baskets so i'm going to set some aside my wife actually made fun of me for it she thought i was a giant nerd no no there's no no she didn't get it the way you do it yeah we celebrate nerds here that's the way it is yeah celebrate nerds here she just walked in now she's staring at me

she thinks i'm really cute yeah yeah there you go so i'm gonna i'm gonna go ahead and do the do the four okay for using scientific names but for the if you end up touching on some of the stuff that i wrote about the against part then i will chime in and i can sprinkle my two cents in there but that sounds i use scientific names i use them a lot to the point to where it's just a habit it's just it's the default setting so yeah no i you know i i i agree as i and i think we're probably on the same page on a lot of these things for sure but hey that's what that's what happens on mild disagreement club so um so when we were in texas i had to do what it was the uh influencer i think episode that we were talking about and i had to had to argue for them and that was tough

sometimes you are given quite a tall task uh yeah with with arguing against every fiber of your being on some of these topics where it's like really i can't i almost can't do this but here we go so yeah all right well do you want to go first or do you want to defer oh let's i'm gonna i'm gonna the best offense is a good defense. So I'm going to, I'm going to defer. Okay. All right. I will, I will start us out here.

So, um, the last, uh, trip I was on, I was on, um, with, with my wife, Heidi, and, uh, we went down to Southern Utah and went herping with some, some local guys, uh, um, down there, um, Chris and Aspen. And then we had a bunch of East coasters in for a little trip. So we had Keith McPeak and a bunch of other guys. Um, sorry guys, I'm not going to name y'all right now. I'll name Keith. We did Arizona together, but yeah, there was a group of us. It was, it was a lot of fun. And the, the lot, you know, Heidi kept asking me, what are they talking about? What, what animal are they referring to? Cause everybody was using scientific names, you know, especially a few of them. And there were other guys that seemed a little more hesitant because they weren't familiar with the animals in the area. And so they didn't maybe know some of the scientific names for the animals in the area. And so I think, you've gotta know your audience. And so if you've got a group of people

who are not familiar with the scientific names you're talking about, it might be a little easier to use the common names, at least for their benefit. You might use them in easier to use, uh, the common names at least for their benefit. Um, you might use them in conjunction, you know, use both, but I would say, you know, you gotta know your audience and, and use common names more frequently sometimes, uh, than others, but I would say, know your audience. That's kind of how I'd start out. Yeah. And I'd agree with that. I mean, we were, me and Phil were talking about it briefly the other night. Um, and you know, with, so if you're doing videos and it's aimed at,

you know, kids or people that are kind of just getting into it, yeah, it might be a little overwhelming, um, in terms of like the magazine and stuff. So her pediculture magazine, which me and Phil do as well. I like like to if some of the writers start addressing things by the the genre name or the species name itself uh nomenclature wise i don't mind keeping that in there and not adding the common name because i want it to kind of engage people and have people curious enough to where they want to go look it up and they're you know i know most of the articles are sort of more spotlighted towards a certain species, but you know,

when you have stuff like carpets and whatnot or gonyosoma or anything like that, giving people sort of that, that crumb of information in a sense to where they, they now want to go look into it more, I think is, is good. And so it's kind of challenging people in a sense. And it's not, uh, like I said, for me, it's kind of challenging people in a sense and it's not uh like i said for me it's a habit uh i picked it up when i was heavy into inverts when i was keeping a lot of scorpions and tarantulas um which in that corner of the hobby common names really aren't used at all

so yeah by default you just you figure it out and you end up catching on and and remembering these things um so for me that's yeah that that was a big part in in that becoming the habit it is um but i like to like i said that's the challenge is people i think yeah and and you know if it's definitely if it's in written form they have the opportunity to google or you know that kind of thing. Or if you use it with the common name up front and have the scientific name in parentheses and then refer to it later as by the scientific name, they should pick up on that. That's kind of how science writes. I like to use the common names almost as much as I like to use the scientific names just because, like I said, you can define them up front and then you can refer to them later and you have more than one thing you can call them. So you're not saying Morelius, Belota, you know, McDowell, the whole article.

You can say coastal carpet as well. So in regards to the tarantulas, that was another thing. Rob Christian was there on the trip in Utah, going back to that, uh, example. And, and he kept referring to all the spiders and scorpions by the scientific name. And so he'd just go, Oh, look, uh, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, and I have no clue on any spiders or, or, you know, scorpions. And so I'm like, you know, reptile, I'm, you know, and no, it's a spider or a scorpion or whatever. So it's like, oh, okay. You know,

I'm out there looking for reptile. I mean, it is cool to see him, but you know, so I, I had no clue what he was talking about if he was looking at a spider reptile or whatnot. So, you know, even if you know quite a few scientific names, you still get thrown for loop. Also again, back to that trip. No, actually this was a previous trip with Chris and Aspen. We were, we found some Chuck Wallace. I'm like, Oh yeah, Chuck. And I'm surprised you don't have those. You know, that just makes sense. I feel like that would be too obvious. The perfect business name right there.

Chuck's Chuck Wallace. I feel like that's got to have been done. I don't know. I've never seen it. I haven't either, but I feel like it has to have. You know what I mean? No, it's got to be you, man. You got to pick up the torch.

Anyway, so I referred to him as Sora Malice Obesis, uh, and they're like sore malice, obesity. They're like, it's adder you idiot. Oh, I'm like, did I it it that was one of the previous names so that's another thing with scientific names you know just like uh you know any any name the taxonomy changes over time and so the the scientific name the species name the genus name might change over time i i mean all the um whiptail lizards you know, have changed to Aspidocilus and, you know, the toads from Bufo to Axoraxanaxis, whatever, however you pronounce their scientific name. So, you know, those names change over time as well. So if you say, you know, oh, that's a boreal toad, I'd probably know what you're talking about. If you said that's an Axoraxanaxis borealis, then I might be like wait what i don't i didn't know it changed from bufo so until a few years ago and i'll give you that one yeah that was one of the ones that i had on against is that it's just it's constantly changing it's constantly evolving and it can be kind of hard

to keep up with especially with some of the stuff that's more studied than others um yeah and a lot of those papers too like you won't hear about it until like a year or a couple months after that paper's already been published and everyone's like yeah that was that's old news dude um yeah so yeah i will give you that one it can be kind of hard to keep up with it's ever evolving well you still see a lot of people putting uh somalia intolia still, you know, I mean, that's, that's, and that happened a little while ago. And that's still, I still see it. Not, I mean, most people don't anymore. But, you know, you still see the occasional person. And then, you know, some, somebody has to be like excuse me but and i think too i mean oh go ahead i was gonna say to that point it's you know whether it's reclassified whether rhino rats are goniosoma or rhynchophis whatever it doesn't has zero bearing on how we're keeping the animals so really at the end of the day it's kind of somatics at that point but it's still cool to read the papers when things change it's cool to

find out what new information they have on some species or insular stuff that hasn't been really studied or looked at in any any depth um so it is it is also fun to to get used to reading these papers and sort of understanding um what exactly some of the terminology is and stuff like that um that book that i have that reptile veterinary medicine and surgery um i love the major book yeah yeah that has a ton of stuff that i was just googling as i was reading because it's like i've never heard of you know x y and z before and like finding out what that means in relation to medical stuff and same with papers you know what are these these measurements and these numbers that they have with this 20-syllable scientific word behind it?

I don't have an example to give you. It's cool. I like learning that stuff. I like going and finding it. I like figuring that out so when I see it down the road in another paper, I'm clued in. I know exactly sort of what they're talking about. Yeah. I'm right there with you.

When I was a kid, um, we had, you know, the summer reading challenge for elementary school. I think I was in fourth grade or something. And my dad, he worked at, uh, um, it's called desert industries. It's like a thrift shop. So he, he would teach people how to work and they'd teach them how to work through running a thrift shop kind of thing. And so, uh, he brought me home an old herpetology textbook and I had like all my pets, uh, you know, scientific names and, you know, what, what family class, all that kind of stuff they were, they belong to and, and, uh, all mapped out within a couple of days, you know, and I, uh, I got credit for one book that's the summer, you know, everybody's reading like 70, 70 books. I read one and it was

a herpetology college textbook, but I probably didn't understand half of it, but I understood enough to classify all my, you know, bring out all the scientific names and classifications of my animals. Um, so I, you know, I do enjoy, um, using scientific names, but yeah, I'm, I'm sure most of those scientific names have probably changed since that book was written. And a lot of the old books you get, you see the differences, you know. So, you know, the inconsistency there. But for the most part, you know, I'll do a little Shakespeare quote, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. You know, as long as you can communicate what you're talking about, um, then there's no, no real harm in using the other names.

I do. I do think for, I'm going to side with you here, Justin, just for a minute. Okay. I know, I know everybody calm down. This won't happen very often. All right. But you know, for me, I mean, this grows back, like I, I grew up up. I still I mean, I still have a learning disability and it's hard. Spelling is hard for me. Like words, you know, big word, big words scare me. But, you know, and I mean, I don't know how long I called it class stopus. And you were like, you mean class to lepus? And I'm like, yep, I sure do. I sure do. So, you know, and, and I mean, I recognize that I am going to usually butcher out, uh, some scientific names before I get them right. And I think, I think that's hard for some people who are coming in and trying to learn them and are not, haven't heard them a lot

or aren't proficient with them where they want to use the common name and they shy away from it because it's, there's some intimidation to it. So I think, I think from that standpoint, the, the, you know, the common name is, is a great safe spot for most people where they can be like, I don't, I'm man, Latin is scaring me bad right now, but I can mess with the common name. And, and, you know, I think as people get into it um that they'll eventually get those latin names and and they'll you know they'll start using the taxonomy as they start learning the natural history and those kinds of things right like that's what kind of

you know anyway that was just my yeah and it's funny you say my little ups for justin because we were talking about night snakes on the last Snakes and Stogies and because I want some of those hypsiglena. Like those are cool little snakes. I want to try them out. I'm going to go ahead and deal with lizards and figure out how what I need to do to make that happen. So yeah, we were talking about them. We were using common names and I had someone

message me on Instagram with the Mexican night snakes. Yeah, what their name is. And they're like, oh, these are for sale and i was like oh that's the wrong night snake and i sent them a picture of the right one and so it's like stuff like that and i wrote so stuff like especially south american stuff when you have parrot snakes bird snakes puffing snakes machete snakes like and they all look fairly similar i mean puffing and bird snakes yeah look like like machete snakes. But when you're getting down to really basic common names like that,

it can be very hard to understand what people are asking about. Spallotes and Piscillotus, two different things. But I guess you could technically call them both bird snakes to some degree. I've talked about Jansseni, like Ganyasoma, the black-tailed rat snake. That's a fairly nondescript common name and i feel like there's likely a lot of rat snakes you could call a black-tailed rat snake so different so you kind of feel like you kind of feel like sometimes that scientific name helps kind of uh peg down what you're talking about a little bit better yeah yeah and i think

it's especially on other podcasts and stuff too um because if someone's talking about a little bit better yeah yeah and i think it's especially on other podcasts and stuff too um because if someone's talking about night snakes it's like are they talking about those mexican night snakes are they talking about the uh you know the ones in texas and arizona the chihuahuas um there's just it's a universal language like it's latin and that's kind of the one thing in a taxonomy itself i feel like doesn't have a whole lot of standards as far as thresholds and measuring sticks. You know, it's fairly open. You know, it's subjective to a degree, especially when you're looking at deviation and stuff from groups as far as something. At what point are we saying something's a subspecies or a separate species entirely?

You know, there is no real good answer to that and so to have something that is sort of a standard where it's like this but kind of like math like it's not going to change like yeah and definitely yeah definitely at some point it's not like if i would say genus and down we're pretty much we're pretty much nailed down you know what i mean I mean? We're not, we're not, uh, we're not in debate from, from genus up, but, uh, certainly from genus down, we, you know, there's a lot of, but which encompasses a huge, you know, a huge, huge amount of, uh, fauna. So, you know, um, yeah, I think, uh, you know, in, in that same line, um, you know, when you talk about even distantly related animals like the Apidora Papuan python versus the Papuan carpet python, if you're calling them that rigidity and, you know, no, you have to call it a West Papuan or you have to call it a, you know, an Irian Jai or whatever, you know, changing the name. And then the common name can be just as confusing as the scientific name sometimes.

But, you know, the scientific name of the Papuan carpet python, you know, is a little dubious anyway. So, you know, probably should be very right gotta or very gotta um and also pronunciations of of scientific names a lot of times you know you'll get harped on for that you know i i i didn't feel like i was harping on you like you did you mean this but you know like i did i that like i said that's all me you You know what I mean? That's one of those things where I'm like, I've kept that animal. I've had malucans, and here I am. Which I think, to my point, nobody should feel bad about mispronouncing something that's difficult to pronounce. Or in a dead language.

And if you get somebody... Yeah, yeah. something that's difficult to pronounce and if you get somebody yeah yeah and if you get somebody who wants to snob hard on you about it then they should just go and kiss your your your right ass cheek right yes god i mean it's not yeah yeah so but i i you do hear a lot of different ways of pronouncing things you know sure it's really kind of, sometimes you see it, you know, like you said, you see it written and you pronounce it some way. And somebody that comes along is like, what are you talking about? I've, I've always called them this, or, you know, this is what I call them.

And then we, you know, you both could be wrong. Like, like Justin said, it's a dead language, you know? So, and Justin, just to defend Scott, I've heard him say that, that, uh, you know, it's okay to mispronounce stuff because nobody's perfect. I have heard him say that. I love giving Scott a hard time. Any chance? Yeah. Oh no. I think, I think giving Scott a hard time is, is, uh, you know, that's, that, that's love talk for Scott. He likes, he likes giving hard times. I think a lot of it is just a different emphasis on, on a different syllable,

you know, crotalus versus crotalus. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Does it matter? Tomato, tomato. It's the same thing.

Like to that, it's whatever. I don't get it. If you live in Australia or you live in Europe or something, you might pronounce it a completely different way. Just, you know, for whatever reason but um whether you're south african whether you're russian whether you're american it's the same species and you all you know what you're talking about yeah everyone's on the same page even if you pronounce it differently yeah that's for sure um well i mean you can say papayan and and nobody knows what you're talking about but i feel like i wasn't there for that one that was an early thp

thing jake was calling pop with the pines for a couple episodes and i couldn't good one i couldn't tell if he was just confused or if he was like legitimately doing it and so i didn't say anything and so then we had you were gonna just let it go see where it went i haven't heard the the end of it in like three or four years yeah yeah that's awesome that's a that's a nice you know public public way to have people remember yeah but you know again it's you know as long as you can communicate what you're talking about i i think it's it's fine to use common names but like you said there's some things that are just, may not have a common name or the common name is shared with a bunch of other species where it's, it's important to communicate what you're talking about. I mean, everybody knows what you,

what you're talking about when you say, you know, Condro, even though that name is no longer used. Yeah. And at that point you're just getting into like the slang of it almost. Yeah. We're talking about it. Chondros, you know, like you laugh a bimaculata. We call them bimacs. Yep. Yep. Exactly.

Beard eye, you know, stuff like that. It's a lot of abbreviations. I don't split hairs when it comes to that stuff. It's just one of those things. Yeah. And I would argue that. I would argue that. It's easier to type out brettel eye than brettel's python.

Like it's almost an abbreviated form. It just easier to say bear die or yeah you know like a corn snakes i'll never call gattatas it's a corn like i'm not yeah not that guy that everything has to be a scientific name it's just yeah it's like spanglish almost except it's latin yeah and some of the abbreviations would be classified as a you know a common name to some extent because you're not saying the whole name you're just you know shortening or something and and so it makes it difficult for you know if if you're not in the know in that group you know i wouldn't know what a bimac was if you said bimac i'd have no clue what you're talking about you know so you kind of have to know that area as well i i don't get into kluber's as much as some guys that goes back to the audience thing yeah what do you what do you call latin slang

like languish is that languish i don't know pretty good yeah latinish latin latin latinish latinish but yeah it's uh i i think you know for some again going back to the people who are not in the know you know no don't know the scientific names i imagine that could be really i guess it would be me at a spider conference you know listen to everybody just rattle off scientific names of spiders not knowing what what's going on the conversation that would be a little frustrating it would not be enjoyable to be in that conversation i'd be like okay i'm gonna go talk to somebody else now yeah it depends on the context right like it i mean i i don't always know in a conversation about snakes or something that I'm unfamiliar with what exactly the species that's being talked about. But if there's an animal in front of me, I can appreciate that animal, right? I think that's a common thing for people is they may not be able to, you know, we don't all have to speak the same language to have appreciation for something, right?

Like, I kind of think that, but look at that. I'm helping you out again, dude. we don't all have to speak the same language to have appreciation for something. Right. Like I, I kind of think that, but yeah, look at that. I'm helping you out again, dude. For me, it's like monitors.

Like I'm, I'm other than the Aki and some, you know, a lot of the endotria sort of stuff. Like I'm, I'm fairly clueless when it comes to a lot of the monitors. So when I hear people talking about them, you know,

I'm usually Googling as I'm listening. And then it's like, Oh, okay. I've heard of that common name before. So now you can sort of put a face to the name in a sense um but i like i like seeing that stuff and learning that kind of stuff you know the way i i came familiar with scientific names is when i was in i don't know probably like the fifth or sixth grade maybe seventh i had like a gallon size ziploc bag of flashcards and it was just common

names on one side, scientifics on the other. And instead of actually paying attention to what I was supposed to be paying attention to in class, I'd just be flipping through those. And then tarantulas happened. And it was one of those things where it's like, you have to learn these things to be able to keep up and understand what's

going on. So I don't know. It's just one of those things where if you want to learn it, it's not difficult. It just requires you to take the time to research and read. But if you don't, I mean, that's cool too. It just might make things a little more difficult. Do you feel like maybe in the invert community that that, that, that, that, that, that, you know, knowing those Latin names as kind of a part of the price of ticket admission makes them uh uh you know makes their community better or had some value added in say comparatively to some of the reptile

community where we use common names that's not necessarily i mean it's a much smaller community compared to reptiles that's for sure and even then in that you know the scorpion sector of that is even smaller than the tarantula sector so and i mean there is a lot of it's a very it's a very nipper community correct but a lot of those species especially tarantulas don't even have common names you know how they even have latin names because someone said oh yeah i found that in south america i named it this cool everyone moves on and just accepts it and kind of just carries on yeah um but you look at stuff like rose hair tarantulas i don't know there's probably more than three or four common names for a rose hair tarantula so and most people are going to know what people are talking about if

they say rose or tarantula of any some sort it's it's, it's going to be that granistola. Um, but that's kind of where it's necessary. And it's the same with, yeah, it's, it's just easier. And especially when you're getting into something like the baboon tarantulas and stuff in Africa,

they can get kind of hard to, to tell apart from one another. Cause a lot of them do look very similar. Um, and I remember posts on, on some of the like arachno boards is a big forum for that stuff. And there'd be on on some of the like arachnoboards is a big forum for that stuff and there'd be posts of some of the uh i'm blanking on the genus name but people wouldn't even know what it was they just they'd know sort of what realm it's in as far as like what genus

it belongs to but they're like we can just tell you that it's this don't get bit by it you know this is how you're probably going to keep it and so it's if you can't give a common name in that scenario you know you don't have you got to be clued into the yeah if you don't even have a scientific name yeah that's scary yeah i don't know i can't tell you anything about just don't get bit by it. Check. Check. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I wonder too if it, like you said, you know, the tarantula community is small. Is that just because people are more freaked out by tarantulas? Or do you think that the scientific name use scares people away or intimidates people from being more involved in the community.

I think it's a fear of spiders. It's arachnophobia, 100%. Definitely. I used to not like spiders. And then I kept them. I got given back a rose here I gave to my buddy for his birthday. And after that, I was like, these are actually pretty cool. And then I just, there was a point where I almost wasn't even keeping reptiles. I had maybe a couple of snakes and it was all scorpions and tarantulas. Okay. Interesting.

Yeah. You guys seem to know those, all those tarantula and scorpion names in Texas. And yeah, again, like snake. Okay. Tarantula.

Okay. Gotcha. But that's another good example though. Cause the ones in the, in the Southwest, they're all pretty much the same color. They're either dark brown or they're all pretty much the same color they're either dark brown or they're tan and guess what a lot of their common names are have the word tan

brown blonde like so you kind of i mean they're all they're all in the same genus but knowing the species kind of does help at least if you're trying to know what you're looking at yeah um yeah so in that regard that's another one where scientific names do come in handy, even though they're all a front of helmet or whatever it is. Yeah. Now, I think birders, they are really good about common name use. Like, I think they try to give each bird a very specific, almost like a scientific name. The common name is generally specific enough that you know what bird they're talking about. And I, I think, you know, the reptile, you know, herpetology could learn a lot from ornithology in a lot of ways where, um, you know, they have it down pat and it's really like, you almost don't have to know

the scientific name to, to get into birding and, and a lot of the apps and things like that are all common name. Um, so it's, it's kind of cool. And, and really, I think most reptiles would have kind of a consensus common name, uh, at least for the ones that I know about, you know, the Australian Python, you know, things like that. Um, so it, it does, you know, there, there is a place for that for, and, and I think, um, it that it that's you know makes birding a little easier to get into or a little more you know easy and enjoyable as a beginner is you don't have people oh do you mean agapornis you know right the scientific names you know um where you can use a common name and it it's equivalent to a scientific name in a lot of ways. And Phil had brought that up too. And I thought that was odd because I would think that birding and birders

would go even harder in the paint when it comes to scientific names. So it's kind of bizarre to me that it's sort of the opposite because you would think with as many different redheaded birds as there are in the world that, that having common names for those would kind of get tough and sort of, it's like, well, we're running out of, running out of ideas. We can't differentiate a redheaded bird at some point. It's like, we got to start using scientific names, I would think. So is there, is there a lot of flux taxonomically in birds? I don't,

I don't have no idea is, is, I mean, you know, it seems like, it seems like reptiles have a fair amount of taxonomic flux and in changing their, their, you know, coming out of a genus or, or, or splitting species or things like that is, is our birds that way as well, Justin? I don't, I don't, I don't really know. I would imagine. I mean, with the advent of DNA, you know, sequencing and, and, and using that in taxonomy, I'm sure there's changes. There's probably everything. Everything, you know, anything with a genome is probably getting moved and shifted around.

And I think it gives a lot of taxonomists, you know, reason to go out and name new species or discover cryptic species. Like, you know, for instance, the, the spiny-tailed skinks out in Western Australia, they were all just Eugernia depressa. Even, and so people were using the common names, um, you know, like the, the gray depressa or the red depressa or the, you know, coral depressa to, to differentiate the different, um, types that were, um, definitely, you know, new species. They just hadn't been described yet and given a formal scientific name. So the common names are actually serving as a substitute for the scientific name to keep them separate and, and breed, you know, a red with a red, which, you know, avoids making hybrids. We, we were one, one of my friends got, got busted bringing some stuff in from

Australia and it went to one of the zoos close to where he lived. And we went and saw the animals there and they had all of them in the same cage, even though they were technically, and now we know three different species and they were all segregated different corners of the cage you know one's over here one's over here one sets over there and they knew they were different species latin kings in one corner ms-13 in the other aryans over here so you know same same kind of deal but they knew they were different species and we knew they were different species. And we're saying, you probably want to keep those in different cages. You know, there's a reason that we're calling them different common names. They're

probably different species. And then, you know, a couple of years later they were described as different species and split up into four, uh, four different species from that one you know widely ranging species so you know common names sometimes can can be well there's more accurate than the scientific name you just don't see the flux in common names right like like a lot of times you know it doesn't really matter what pop when carpets do as long as we know you know what in common name we're talking about right yeah like like maybe that was a shitty example but no it's a good example like the eastern garters yeah you know there's a lot of variation in those we have some around here that are really nice blue teal and then we have some that are army green and kind of ugly and then there's some that are like brick red and they're all the same species you know and yeah but that's a red form

garter that's a blue form that's the you know normal or whatever you want to call it wild type i guess but that's i mean that's a good example of that it's yeah the common or the colloquial colloquialism helps to know what you're talking about more specifically than maybe a scientific name might. So, you know, there is some caution, I guess, to just relying on scientific names because those can change and those can be split up into separate species. And if especially when you're bringing stuff into, you know, herpetoculture and you're, you know, having breeding projects or even zoos, you know, if you're breeding a bunch of stuff in the zoos, like the, the Fijian banded iguanas, you know, those got split up and, and a lot of zoos found out they were actually making hybrids, you know, which is not the best scenario there. So, you know, especially if you're trying to conserve a, uh, island species that is, is fairly rare at least in zoos, a zoo setting. So that's, uh, something to, to be careful of as well. And I'm sure they, they came from maybe different islands and the islanders knew there

was something different about them. You know, that kind of thing. The locals probably knew, uh, these are different species or different types at least. So. Well, what are your thoughts on, on condors being split into the different subspecies? Is that something that you kind of figured was the case going in? It was a little bit surprising. I mean, obviously there's, there's some, you know, definitely some that was somewhat warranted and, you know, they probably could have gone further or, or less far. I, I don't know. Taxonomy really frustrates me because, um, you know, how long there, there's no just firm and fast rules. And we talk a lot, quite a bit about this. We have

an episode with Scott Iper coming out this Friday. So, um, that will be in the past when this is released. Yeah. Speaking past tense. We're going into the future. Quite a bit about that. But I think the recent one that really makes me scratch my head is the Antaresia paper where they took all the children's and Stimson's and lumped them all into children. But then they took spotted and split them into two subspecies and a different species for the ones on New Guinea. So, yeah, I mean, I don't know. And some of the studies just aren't that solid. Like they're not built on a terribly good foundation. I know rhino rat snakes, even the people who wrote that paper,

said, we didn't do a whole lot of footwork on this, so call them what you want, but we're going to put them in with gonyosoma anyways, even though they're nothing like Jansen I or the oxy-succulent. Anything like that, it's like, whatever. That's a hill on the island with rob stone yeah i mean what is that dude like is that just some people like i'm in the scientific field i'm expected to publish and i need to publish even if what i'm publishing might be unsupported crap to maybe to some extent.

I mean, you know, if you're funded, you got to have a product at the other end. So if you're not publishing and you're being funded, you're probably not going to get funded the next round. If you got a surplus or something too, I'm sure it's like,

we got to get this spent or we're not going to get it next year. Yeah. And then there's, I work for the government. I know all about spending everything you get. And there is a downside to, to that kind of thing. I mean then there's, I work for the government. I know all about spending everything you get. And there is a downside to, to that kind of thing. I mean, it's, it's really hard to publish negative results, you know, in, in, in my line of work, there's, you know, most of the stuff we get is negative results, you know, like, cause we're looking for stuff that'll treat in viruses and

viral diseases. And so, you know, if you get something that doesn't work, you're not going to publish on it. But at the same time, that can be, that can be useful information as well. So, you know, even if you don't find there's a difference between, you know, the different gonyosoma or, or if you're trying to lump something that doesn't go there, you know, there's something to be said about like what we found confirmed or based on what we see with our eyes. That's the thing when you got a gene jockey that just is looking at a couple genes and they say, oh, it says this. We got to move it no matter what our eyes tell us. I think that's just kind of bad science regardless of, you know, how well supported you think it is or how well you can argue it. It's probably, I mean, I, I think you're just taking, you're taking a factor without taking into account all

of the factors, right? You're, you're probably looking at it at the, at the wrong. And you know, if it says something, it says something, but are you looking at it at the right, uh, confirmation bias? Yes. Thank you. you thank you somebody with a real word there jeez that's that's i've said it a lot on on the other you know on our shows and stuff it's like that's the most frustrating thing with taxonomy is it's science like it's a world of standards and measuring sticks and thresholds and definitive parameters this is how you do it. But hey, this is point half a percentage deviated from this population in an island

from the mainland. It's a new species. And it's like, there has to be, and some people bring up the whole, like we're 3% deviated from bananas or something weird like that. And it's like, let's be realistic.

Like we're not comparing,'re not making chondros three percent related to hyenas it's like there but there has to how is there not some sort of once it's past this number we can say it's a species once it's you know it's inside that and it's far enough away from the baseline like that's a subspecies like it just blows my mind that in in the world of i won't necessarily say definitives but you know like calculated measured we know the category yeah they're trying to categorize everything and say where it fits and how it fits and instead it's just working all that out that's yeah it seems it seems like that that's the case and And you know, I,

I've always, I'm, I'm on the same page there. Like I just get frustrated, like, come on, you know, really, you're going to call that the same thing or you're going to split those things up or whatever and leave these things, you know, with the, you're going to lump all the stuff under children's eye, but you're going to split spotted into three different things. You know, it's like, but, but, but I mean i mean at the same time like who's do i mean is that the new is that the new standard for you know what i mean like it's just publishing that doesn't necessarily make it so right yeah it still has to go through like

everyone basically saying yeah i agree with that and then they either adopt it or they don't, you know, and if people don't agree with it, then it just kind of goes by the way of, you know, glossed over, maybe not great work. Right. I mean, well, it ends up being that, that one paper, you know? Yeah. If, if you adopt that too, and you're in Australia and you're looking at an Antaresia, you know, you're, Oh, I saw a children's Python. Well, where, where were you? You know, there's so many follow-up questions versus I saw Western Stimpsons. Okay. Well, I, I at least know, you know, you're in the general area of Western Australia, you weren't in the Northern territory or whatever, or, or in Queensland or whatever. I mean, if

you're right now, if you follow that children's, uh, current status or whatever, they, they, the published published version, then you're gonna, you could be anywhere in Australia and say, I saw a children's Python and I don't know. I mean, I, I like the idea of, you know, if something's biologically significant, I mean, something with a distinct pattern, um, that's somewhat isolated from other populations. And I, I thought their genetic work showed like four different populations of, of what could be, you know, broken into four different species, potentially, you know, I, I know I talked to another tech taxonomist that, um, and he said that, oh, those could be four species. If I was doing the work,

that's what it would have been, you know? So it just depends a little bit on who's doing the work and maybe, you know, if you, if you split them up, there's already a name for them. So you don't get the notoriety of naming something new. And, you know, again, maybe they had to do something cool because they're up for promotion and at their university. And if they name a new species, they get promoted. Or if they show some controversial thing that they try to get everybody to adopt. You might get hosed if you name it a new species. The other side of that coin is, you know, I'm,

I'm sitting here with my, my animals and boxes, you know, all the way across the other side of the world. Like I'm not the one doing the footwork. I'm not the one putting in the time. Who am I to really question it? Can I have an opinion about it? Sure. But these people are also putting in the time and effort, you know, whether that's a lot of effort or next to nothing that's to be seen, but I can't really say much. And once again, it's not going to have any effect on how I'm keeping my animals,

whether Gonyosoma jansenii and Gonyosoma oxycephalum end up being put in together in the same species. I'm still going to keep them the way I'm keeping them. Yeah, for sure. the common name, you know, you're going to know what the animal is regardless of what genus it's in, or if it's sunk into the same species. If you say, you know, I've got a, you know, New Guinea spotted python, people aren't going to know what you're talking about. Or if you say I have a Cape York spotted python, pretty easy to know what they're talking about. You know, if they haven't read the latest paper and you're using the new, you know, Antaresia papuensis that, you know, people are being like, what? What is that? I've never heard of that, you know? So, yeah.

Well, what do you think about Somalia? Like the cryptic diversity, like we saw with condors, do you think there's a similar thing going on with scrubs? Oh yeah. I think the scrub complex is a big mess. And I think there's some work going on now that will hopefully clarify that soon. Although, you know, science and writing scientific publications or even trade books like the Complete Carpet Python take time and get delayed and people get frustrated because it's not out yet. You know, you just got to take it when it comes. And that was another, when I was writing the Nobtail book, there was the hint or, you know, people were kind of chattering about how the banded Nobtails, Wheeleri, were probably separate species between Synctus and Wheeleri. You know, before they were subspecies, Wheeleri synctus and wheeler eye wheeler eye. And then just right before we got the book finished up, they published that paper that showed that they were separate species and had a pretty good justification for that.

So we included them in the book as separate species, but it was pretty easy change. Just take out the extra W, call them wheeler eye or synctus. So, yeah, some splits aren't that easy, but that one was pretty, was that just a case they were already subspecies with subspecific. Yeah. Was that just a case of them not having looked at them for a couple of decades and now we have the technology to do it. Or was it just a thing where people were like, sure, it's a subspecies,

whatever, we're not going to bother. Yeah. I think it was mostly the, the DNA work where you could demonstrate that they had diverged significantly through you know the different genes that they looked at and you know who knows maybe in the future they go back to being subspecies i mean they're very similar but they do have some morphological differences as well and that usually helps if you can show they have a restricted range they have genetic differences and they have morphological characteristics. And, you know, we're kind of trying to do that a little bit with the carpets in the book, but it's just for fun.

You know, we're not taxonomists. So anything we put out there is just an idea, a hypothesis that, you know, science can go and check or prove one way or the other. And we could be completely wrong or we could be right on the money. So, but, you know, keeping them and having that interest in them, I think a lot of times can in some ways trump a degree in regards to understanding what, you know, is different from what, you know, you can see those subtle differences that most people miss, like with the chondros. I mean, I think, you know, there were a lot of things that the chondro community knew that maybe science had to go out and measure a thousand specimens. They see a difference and say, Oh, okay. Yeah, you're right.

The tail length is different or the, you know, the thickness of the tail or whatever is different. I think some of that's starting to come out in Somalia right now is where they're, you know, the, the, the, but before it was, you know, you had a set number of locality and, and when they came from that locality, that's what it was. And, and now, you know, when something looks different, people jump on it. Like, no, that's not that. And, and, you know, I,

I think now we're starting to see like, oh, okay. And, and I think that will probably drive some, some, you know, some grad student to go out and do the research. I know Iper, I thought he had said that there was work being done on some of the Aussie scrubs. So, you know, that'll be interesting. And I could see that. I don't, I don't know, you know, I, I feel like, uh, some of the people who do the endo work, you know, they, they tend to focus, you know, like, like, you know, Mark, Mark does a lot of endo stuff, but, you know, he tends to go on expeditions and do a lot, you know, lots of species. Right. So, um, you know, I don't know, I don't know anybody. But that means

absolutely nothing, because I don't know a lot of people. But you know, I don't know anybody trying to really sort scrub pythons out right now. Yeah, there is some work going on. And is there a little while? Oh, I mean, and really, I mean, I think a lot of this speaks, you know, where, where herpetoculturalists study and know the stuff and they have these maybe, you know, trade names that they use to differentiate what they think are significant, biologically significant groups, or at least morphotypes of a species, you know, like,, Schmitty was talking about in regards to the color phases of Eastern garter snake, um, that where there, there is a place for, um, you know, citizen science where you can say, Hey, I'm, I'm noticing this pretty consistent difference in these animals

that I'm keeping and I'm getting them from these different areas. And Hey, I don't, I don't think this is the same thing, or I don't think these are the, should be the same thing. And then you go to their habitat and you find a few in the wild and you're like, Oh, it's a consistent thing. I'm seeing this in the habitat as well. And I'm seeing this in the wild. And then you, you kind of talk to a herpetologist and you team up and, you know, your idea can become a scientific study. And, and then the herpetologist kind of knows how to go about that the proper way to, you know, be consistent with the rules and the ways that things are done in science. So, and whereas this could all stem from, you know, using their common names or using a trade name or using some kind of name to differentiate that we use in in herpetoculture

that's not used in herpetology and not even known about or cared about in herpetology but it could result in some pretty big um findings potentially i just it makes me kind of giggle because if they ever lumped carpets together everyone would lose their minds like they happened with condors because everyone's like oh you're breeding hybrids and i was like yeah we kind of figured like nobody cares they're still awesome it doesn't matter they did that with car yeah there would be yeah war in the streets well and there's a there's kind of a push for that like you know they're all the same species and these these taxonomists don't believe in subspecies in a lot of cases. Although, uh, we talked about Donnellan and his, uh, use of

subspecies in the green tree paper. So that kind of surprised me a little, cause he typically shied away from using subspecies names in his publication. So, you know, the fact that, uh, you know, and there I've, I've heard there's work being done on the carpet. So we might see a similar thing that was done with the children's pythons. They could just sink them all into Morelia Spoloda. And yeah, people would be like, wait a second. We know. Yeah, exactly.

Would Nick's head explode? I think every scientific paper I propose that in giant bold letters at the top under the title and authors, it should say this is subject to change. Yeah, for sure. Disclaimer. And that's another. They can be like, OK, someone's going to revisit this at some point, may not be in my lifetime, but it is set in stone. Yeah. Yeah. That's, uh, and, and another, you know, kind of shortcoming of science is that people don't want to fund research that verifies other research. You know what I mean?

Like if somebody comes out with a paper, nobody's going to fund you to go look at that same topic to see if what the first group found out was correct. But actually that's a very important aspect of science is that your, your results be repeatable. Probably the most critical part of science. Yeah, exactly. Unless a old, old, he who shall not be named, uh, does his little work on stuff,

then people will definitely try to counter that or, or verify. But, you know, I was actually was actually i i came across one of his his uh papers in quotations and and a lot of the ideas that he was having in regards to carpets were kind of this along the same lines i was thinking and i'm like oh no am i hosier am i doing the same thing you know so it's, you know, I think that he's, he's smart enough to be dangerous, I guess is the point. But, you know, one person can kind of go and make a big mess of a, of a group of work without actually doing the actual work. And so that's why that's the biggest, I think that's one of the bigger issues around taxonomic rules and and

how things like that work i i mean i i you know i just i would be freaking pissed if i did all this work you know i mean i i'm assuming i'm assuming people who are doing this work do their homework enough to know like oh man if i do this ah damn you know like they they know and you almost wonder is that is that key people from doing work because they're like i am not giving that no i'm not giving them their due for that you know there was a case of that just recently with owen pelly pythons the s query group that um they they did the they were the ones that did the children's python thing but they um they were looking at uh just broad um classifications of of australian pythons and they they found that uh oh and peli pythons were more basal to the carpet python group

which warranted a change in genus from somalia to what they called nawaran which i thought was kind of a cool name because it's the aboriginal name for owen pelly python and so i was all excited about that well then another group came in and said actually the you know proper genus name is nyctophilopithon from uh you know wells and wellington back in 86 or whatever and so you know there was a publication that said you know you're you need to use this name because it was proposed first and so they had to you know adopt that and now a lot of the guidebooks are using nyctophilopiththon and now it's never going to matter because we're never going to have any of them over here yeah right or nobody's going to want

to try to pronounce that in public anyway people arguing over the name of an imaginary friend yeah it sounds like some neurologic abnormality i was going to say that or something or something Or something a pervert gets convicted for. Yeah, exactly. Again, a win for the common name, I guess. Everybody knows what you're talking about when you say Owen Pelly Python. Well, but it's not fair because you have to have a naming system. And that system needs to have a set of rules or some of those rules completely like like it's it's it's it's kind of like it's kind of like we that you know we haven't updated our constitution forever and has our world you know as us as the us has it changed significantly

like should we probably like look at some of it and see if it makes sense now i'm not saying that we should just throw the constitution out that's not what i'm fucking saying but it you know sounds like that's what you're saying no that's not what i'm saying i think you're anti-america that's i am a pico commie yes so i So I just think that, you know, you have to make things make sense for, you know, where you're at. And, and I'm sure way back when, when it wasn't super confusing and, and they were just naming stuff off the basis of how it looks, it all made a whole bunch of sense and it was a lot less complex, but now it's kind of like, oh, my God, this is a freaking mess. Yeah.

They didn't have any concept of DNA or, you know, that kind of thing. And now that's, you know, what a lot of this stuff is based on is DNA work. And yeah. But it's always it's remembering that taxonomy is it's a it's it's not a start and a finish. It's a it's just a perpetual timeline like so yeah right now rhino rat snakes are gone you so much in 20 years it may completely change and they may be monotypic who knows like it's it's always evolving it's it's it's never just set to where it's like okay this is what it is and this is what it'll be forever so it's like

that's a really good point and there's stuff's always evolving too so you're i mean look at corn snakes it's another example like the range of corn snakes there's got to be some sort of cryptic diversity going on there too i would think given the range and like you know island types and montane stuff and surely there's more going on there and that would be another point where scientific names would probably help because if there's more going on there and that would be another point where scientific names would probably help because if there's now a million common names for the different kinds of horns might become problematic um but stuff's always evolving so yeah you know uh children's pythons may now be back in one gigantic group but in however many hundreds of years, it may have changed. Maybe someone,

new technology constantly evolving, maybe they find something else and they say, okay, let's go back to how it was before. Like it's, it's very fluid. It's constantly shifting and it's never going to stay how it is forever. It's not permanent. What do you think about, what do you think about the, oh no, no, no, no, no, we can't have that factor of like something gets put somewhere and then it causes a research group to be like, uh-uh, no, we got to readdress this. We got to, and it spurs more research to confirm it, but, you know, um, certainly if you could, uh, show that maybe the, the methods and methods, uh, of, of the way they got there, wasn't so sound. Uh, I'm sure everybody's down for that kind of a scientific, uh, beat down. Yeah, no, I, I mean, I, I probably was talking out my butt. I don't know how, you know, research in herpetology is funded, but I mean, I do know that, of course, but you know, they, they may, they may fund that kind

of stuff. And I, and I think as long as you have a good scientific hypothesis that you want to test and you have some preliminary evidence that shows, you know, support for what you're looking at, then, you know, you have as good a chance of getting funded as anybody. I think your statement was right because, you know, when they look at papers and research, they're like, wow, these methods were, you know, innovative and very sound and, you know, they want to talk about how valid the way they arrived at that was. And if it was extremely valid, then yeah, then that's probably, you know, kind of the end of it. Right. And, and, you know, given the, the idea of like certain funding is really easy to

get for like human stuff. Right. Well, probably not even easy to get, but probably a lot easier than reptiles. Right. So a good, a good sound reptile paper probably is about as far as it's going to go as far as confirming work like that. You know what I mean? Unfortunately, yeah. That's what I suspect. But again, I have no – I mean, other than kind of being an author on a couple of papers with some – Well, you've definitely got to read a few. Yeah.

So, yeah, it is what it is. I guess we, we do the best we can with what we've got, but, um, and you, you know, like Justin said, it's, this is an ever evolving thing. I mean, nothing's static, everything kind of keeps going. And I mean, 10 years ago it was unheard of to, you know, and it took weeks to sequence a genome. Now we can do it in a, you know, a few hours or something, depending on what, what technology we use. So we can dive deeper and less, less expensively than we could even a decade ago. So it's going to be interesting to see where it's going to continue. Like as fast as technology is moving now, what's it going to be like in 20 years, 10 years?

It's crazy. It'll be interesting to see how things change as far as taxonomy and new technology coming into the fold and adapting things. Yep. Yep. Pretty exciting to think about, I guess.

For sure. It's nice to think about technology. yeah yeah for sure nice about technology it gives us more tools i love seeing phylogenic trees and stuff man like they just released one on on boyga about a year ago that just showed the relationship of everything and i i find that very cool to see where things are coming from because you'd be surprised at you know uh rock uh rock conjures is what i want to call them rough scale pythons you know i never would have guessed that they were so closely related to green trees but then you see them and you look at them and it's like that's a rock conjure like the head shape is almost identical to some of those it's

it's just cool because that's two completely different biomes and stuff that those things are living in but to be that closely related i don't't know. I love that kind of stuff. It's, it's neat to see. Yeah. Yeah. It is fun to see. And, and, you know, in the same token, like sometimes you look at a paper and you're like, wait a second, that's not right. You know, uh, why asses aren't, aren't Antaresia or whatever, you know, all of Python is not a children's Python relative, you know, even though they might look similar from a distance. I don't know. You know, it's really kind of sometimes you see them and go, no, that's not right.

Yeah. And, you know, it's always nice when you're right and they change it and you're like, yep, I told them. I told them. I told them so. It was all me. Yeah. Well, any final statements? We beat the horse to death? Or rather the equus communicus?

I'll say scientific names help cut through the confusion. They're the universal language in a smaller and considerably more digital world and hobby now. You know, I'm in some of the groups on Facebook that are European and there's, I don't even know what the language is when i'm reading it couldn't tell you what country it's from but they put in that scientific name it's like oh i know exactly what they're talking about you just got to piece together what the rest of it is so yeah that's a good point um and you know i think uh where where science falls short, maybe common names can help out in some cases and we can have maybe a little more specificity with something that's broadly categorized or not shown to be really genetic or no real great justification to split into different species, but we might have regional phenotypes or as, you know, Scott Eiper kind of brought out races, you know, different sub classification schemes that we could use, but are somewhat equivalent to maybe a common name or maybe a more specific locality or something like that. You know, we, we know what, as long as we know what we're talking about, I think using,

using common, using scientific names is is definitely important but as long as we know what we're talking about and we can communicate and everybody's you know edified and knows what's going on then i think we're we're good with uh common or scientific as long as the the participants are understanding what we're talking about people should do what makes them comfortable if they want to use common names go crazy if you like to do scientific stuff go nuts there too yeah whatever you want i'm not i don't want people to think that it's me saying we should all only be using scientific names because that's the case i don't even do that but yeah yeah it is but that was the coin flip that was the coin flip you had to argue that side. It's not information to have a no.

Yeah. And if you are confused and you don't know what somebody's talking about, ask them, you know, they'll, they'll probably tell you they're not going to. And if they shun you, they're probably not somebody you want to hang out with anyway.

So leave that group, whatever. Don't, don't be shamed into not getting into a different group of animals so yeah yeah cool well good uh good discussion there thanks for uh thanks for your insights i thought that was really helpful and some things i hadn't really considered so yeah cool stuff man how do uh people find you get in touch with you? They can hunt me down. So as far as what I'm keeping and breeding, you can find me on Instagram.

It's mostly where I'm at. It's where I post the most. That's at Palmetto Coast Exotics. The Herpetoculture Network has all the podcasts. That's anywhere podcasts are found. Audible, Spotify, Google, iTunes, all that good stuff. Herpetoculture Magazine, herpetoculturemagazine.com and i think that's it that's very cool man what a what a body of work you're leaving behind that's that's really admirable i mean i that uh magazine alone is a huge endeavor to add on it a podcast

uh empire and you know you're you're uh gonna gonna earn that name podfather as well so it's just the love of the hobby man i like to just drown in it every day as weird as that sounds i'd like just being like all day every day just in it you know that's awesome yeah well i i i for one definitely appreciate what you're doing. I enjoy your podcasts and the magazine and all, all sorts of stuff. So keep it up and, you know, let me know if I can help out in any way. So I was going to ask you too, what is a Palmetto coast? What does that refer to? I'm not familiar with Palmetto. So I'm in South Carolina, which is the Palmetto state and I'm on the coast. Like literally the water's like 300 yards that way. Um,

Oh, nice. So Palmetto state exotics was already taken. So I ended up just doing Palmetto coast and then people thought that it was Florida. So. Yeah. I, yeah,

I was, I was a little confused, but I mean, your, your, your symbol or, or, uh,

what do you call it? Your graphic there has this, you know, the state outline, right? So it's, it's definitely do you call it? Your graphic there has this, you know, the state outline, right? So it's, it's definitely not Florida. Yeah. Your logo. Um, so is, is Palmetto a tree? Is that a, is that what that is? Sorry for my ignorance. No fun fact. They actually used to use them in like the, the civil and revolutionary wars that because it's a very fibrous tree, they'd use that on the front of forts because cannonballs couldn't penetrate.

And Chuck's probably familiar because we have the Marine Corps Air Station. What kind of tree are they? I don't even know. I couldn't tell you. I think they're their own thing. They're in some sort of palm family. Okay. Interesting.

Well, let's go off to look into that that's i guess i should have done that in the first place i'm i'm lazy i guess when it comes to trees cool man well we appreciate you being on here and um thanks to our listener and uh hope hope you got something out of this and please join us next week for another episode of reptileile Fight Club. We'll catch you later. Reptilian Fightus Club Eye is out. Thank you. Bye.