Global Snake audit yields over 400 species in 75 unclassified genera.
Media release
An audit of most of the world’s advanced snakes utilizing results of several molecular studies has found more than 25 genera of unassigned or improperly assigned snake species.
A second sweep of those omitted in the first round to complete the audit added about another 50 genera, 36 of which were Blind snakes.
In a series of papers published in issues 10-15 of Australasian Journal of Herpetology, over 400 species of snakes were shown to have been placed within genera they were not phylogenetically a part of.
As a result, Australian zoologist Raymond Hoser assigned the relevant species to more than 75 new genera in a series of recently published papers. At the same time several undescribed species were formally named for the first time.
Honoured in having snakes and genera named after themselves included various well-known herpetologists and others.
Snakes assigned to new genera included species on every inhabited continent, including Europe, South America, Madagascar, Australia, New Guinea and Japan. The areas with most unassigned snakes were south-east Asia and quite surprisingly, North and Central America.
While most of the new genera are small in numbers of species or even monotypic (one species only), some are actually quite large with one newly named genus of American Coral Snakes consisting of over 40 species, which happens to include all the species found within the United States!
As to why some areas had a lot of unassigned species and others such as Australia didn’t, the snake man Raymond Hoser had a simple explanation.
“The molecular methods used to identify snake genera accurately is relatively new. In some places, notably Australia, Africa and to a lesser extent South America, there are individual herpetologists who have in recent years aggressively sought out and formally named any unassigned groups of species meaning there were less unnamed ones found by this audit. In the North America, the perception for some years had been that everything there was known so a lot of species had been ignored for a long time by the local herpetologists. Meanwhile molecular studies not available just decades ago had revealed deep divergences within groups thought to be monophyletic.”
Species of snakes assigned to new genera include Pitvipers, True Vipers, Colubrids, Snail eaters, Mole snakes and others. In terms of Colubrids, genera split up to include newly named genera include Thamnophis, Nerodia, Regina, Boiga, Dendrelaphis, Lampropeltis, Natrix, Coronella, Coleognathus, Rhadinophis and Xenochrophis.
Issue 9 of the journal shows that the 2009 reclassifications of various species including Rattlesnakes were published in accordance with the Zoological Code, which is at variance with widely disseminated false claims made late in 2009 to the effect that AJH was only an electronic journal.
The Rattlesnake reclassifications of 2009 and a similar one published this year are corroborated by recent molecular studies. The most notable change to pre-existing taxonomy is the removal of the rattlesnake species ravus into its own genus Piersonus.
The papers can be obtained either as hard copy or via the web as pdf’s from:
http://www.herp.net
— This site is archived; see this for more information. —
Global audit yields new snake species
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Comments
99.9% of all the papers he's written are absolute nonsense
Seriously? You're listening to Hoser??? Look at the number of 'scientific' papers he has self released in the past few years.... and if you can find me A SINGLE ONE that makes a claim for species change with any actual scientific evidence presented by Hoser himself at the time I'll eat this laptop.
Hoser uses a technique whereby he self publishes an obscene amount of papers on an almost daily basis claiming absolutely everything he can think of in terms of possible new species/reassignments but actually presents no evidence to back these claims at all. 99.9% of all the papers he's written are absolute nonsense (seriously anyone with a zoology BSC background who has read any of them will tell you this!!!) and are never accepted but unfortunately he writes so many that occasionally he gets lucky.
The reason I say he gets lucky is because around the world proper molecular studies are being done into various different animal species all the time and from time to time these studies present clear phylogenetic evidence of a new species/species in need of reclassification. When this (very occasionally) happens with a species that Hoser claimed is new/needs reclassifying then because it is documented by him he takes the credit for the discovery and appears to have a historical paper to back it. Just bear in mind that when you read Hoser's papers you will find there is no ACTUAL evidence but a plethora of statements along the line of "genetic evidence shows" even though he never did any kind of genetic study
To put it more simply:
A world renowned herpetologist who specialises in snake phylogeny once referred to Hoser's scientific technique as "Like throwing s**t in the air on a shooting range... It's not an effective or skilful way of hitting a target but if you throw enough s**t then you're bound to hit something!"
So why is this so bad you might ask? Well... Hoser is doing almost no work towards the actual discovery and most of his claims are the babblings of an idiot... but when these occasional phylogenetic studies support one of his papers then, as the nomenclature currently stands, Hoser will be given credit for the discovery and the (usually ridiculous) names he gives the species (99% ending with hoserii [modest fellow eh?]) becomes the accepted species name. He then likes to boast about how he discovered the species and give no credit to the people who did the actual work.
Ok to further fill you in about this guy: As shown above, he is a liar but he is also incredibly cruel to animals in a ridiculous number of ways. He used to surgically remove venom glands from his snakes himself in unsanitary conditions without proper training or even anaesthetic just so he could make a profit by showing himself off free-handling Australia's most venomous snakes. His license to keep snakes in Australia was recently revoked for making his young daughter get bitten in public by a venomoid Taipan snake in order to make himself look good. Oh and based on what happened to a good friend of mine a couple of years ago... if he finds out who I am then because I wrote this he will call up my current employer and claim I am a paedophile.
Fantastic fellow really... Here's 2 links to one of his latest escapades attempting to steal a discovery documented years previously by a well respected herpetologist: (but still manage to make inaccurate claims about the species)
http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2012/07/26/312001_ntnews.html
http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2012/08/04/312547_ntnews.html
And just a link to the story about his license to keep reptiles being revoked for his irresponsible show off behaviour:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/snakeman-has-licence-revoked/s...