Pixie the tanimbar scrub python

[rock]

Okay, maybe 3.5 feet... I'm just estimating! Her tail is very long.



Thanks! Actually same, I knew about scrubs, but I didn't know about the nauta subspecies until I saw her at the show... and I researched on my phone on the spot. LOL

Yeah they're morelia! Or at least, they used to be. Apparently it's simalia nauta now. Boelen's pythons are also simalia now, since a couple years ago.

If his mama called him Morelia, imma call him Morelia! Actually, the proposed change is quite interesting. Below is from the actual research. Seems they suggest all scrub pythons might be on their own "branch" in the "tree of life".

And Nauta is latin for sailor, seaman, mariner. Cool all the way around!

A number of studies have suggested that taxonomy in the genusMorelia does not reflect actual evolutionary relationships Pyr-on et al., 2013b; Rawlings et al., 2008. For instance, Rawlings et al.(2008) suggested that Morelia might be paraphyletic, and identifiedthree lineages: (1) M. boeleni, (2) M. carinata + M. viridis, and (3) M.amethistina + M. bredli + M. oenpelliensis + M. spilota. We added thespecies M. tracyae, M. clastolepis, M. nauta, and M. kinghorni to ouranalysis and recovered a slightly different arrangement. We foundsupport (BS = 92, PP = 0.99) for the Australasian/Indonesian cladeof scrub (amethystine) pythons (M. oenpelliensis, M. boeleni, M. tra-cyae, M. amethistina, M. clastolepis, M. kinghorni, and M. nauta) and aclade of the carpet and tree pythons (M. bredli, M. carinata, M. spi-lota, and M. viridis), which is sister to the children’s (dwarf) pythons(Antaresia). Within the scrub pythons, we found a basal placementof the enigmatic M. oenpelliensis and M. boeleni, and we foundstrong support for the distinction of the species M. tracyae, M. ame-thistina, and M. clastolepis, though not the closely-related derivedspecies M. kinghorni, and M. nauta (BS = 57, PP = 0.93) described in Harvey et al. (2000). It should be noted that Harvey et al.(2000) suggest that M. amethistina likely comprises a cryptic spe-cies complex, a sentiment which is echoed by O’Shea (2007). Among the tree pythons, we did not find strong support for theplacement of M. carinata or M. viridis (other research suggests thatthe latter is likely two species: M. viridis and M. azurea; Rawlingsand Donnellan, 2003 relative to the rest of the clade; however,we did find support for the distinction of the carpet pythons M. bre-dli and M. spilota (BS = 100, PP = 1.0), as well as the distinction ofthe subspecies M. s. spilota and M. s. variegata (BS = 100,PP = 0.88). Additional subspecies are described in M. spilota, anda more extensive analysis would determine whether this wide-spread species is in fact a species complex. Our analysis supportsa close relationship between the tree, carpet, and children’s py-thons, but we are unable to recover strong support among thesespecies, likely due to the availability of only mtDNA sequencesfor M. carinata and most species of Antaresia. Additional samplingof markers should help to resolve the species’ relationships in thisclade. However, it is clear that Morelia is likely paraphyletic withrespect to the other Australasian/Indonesian pythons, and we rec-ommend resolving this paraphyly with a new generic name for thescrub python clade (M. oenpelliensis, M. boeleni, M. tracyae, M. ame-thistina, M. clastolepis, M. kinghorni, and M. nauta).