Talk:Borikenophis portoricensis

Classification/Article Title: Alsophis portoricensis or Borikenophis portoricensis ?

The following talk is a copy from HERE :

Hi. I was wandering if you do animalia too? If so, HERE is one that might need a second set of eyes. Thank you! Mercy11 (talk) 15:46, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

I know a little about animals, but not much. It looks pretty good to me. Unfortunately, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles seems to be pretty dead. I'm not sure how to resolve the Alsophis/Borikenophis issue. I'll look into it a little further. Plantdrew (talk) 23:02, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Borikenophis portoricensis is probably the scientific name to go with; EOL lists some treatments in different databases; EOL ultimately follows ITIS in treating it as Alsophis portoricensis, but the ITIS record hasn't been updated since 2004, and the name B. portoricensis was first published in 2009. Sources since 2009 seem to be mostly classifying it as B. portoricensis. But the title is a whole other issue. The former genus-mates in Alsophis are titled by common names. So perhaps the title should be Puerto Rican racer, but Borikenophis lists "Puerto Rican racer" also as a "common" name for another species (and the English "common" name was first coined by scientists for a snake which might be most commonly known as "culebra corredora" by the people who encounter it on a regular basis). Reptile articles seem to use a mix of common names and scientific names. I'm happy leaving it at Alsophis portoricensis for now and letting a future editor who's get a better handle on how to deal with reptile articles figure it out. Plantdrew (talk) 04:20, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps additional editors might care to comment.

I see two issues to deal with:

1. How should it be classified (Alsophis portoricensis or Borikenophis portoricensis)?
2. How should the article be titled (Alsophis portoricensis? Borikenophis portoricensis? Puerto Rican racer? Culebra corredora? Puerto Rican Racer? Culebra Corredora? something else?)?

Thanks, Mercy11 (talk) 13:12, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I don't know a lot about the classification of many reptiles other than anoles but I can tell you that the most recent taxonomic work done on this species (2009) placed it in the genus Borikenophis, this is also the Classification used by The Reptile Database. This classification was based on DNA sequence analysis and has yet to be contested so I think you should use Borikenophis as the Genus name.As for the common name I think Puerto Rican racer would be the best choice for the article title,i don't know if there are any other racer snakes on Puerto Rico but I don't think many people would be very familiar with any of the two generic names to find the article and Culebra Corredora could be redirected there and listed as an alternate name.If there is indeed more than one racer snake on Puerto Rico then perhaps a disambiguation page for Puerto Rican racer should be set up.--Jamaican college grad (talk) 01:02, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

We probably should go with The Reptile Daabase, which follows the 2009 study by Hedges. Hedges both created the genus Borikenophis, and recognized Borikenophis variegatus as a species (not as a subspecies of B. portoricensis. If we follow Hedges consistently, as the Reptile Database does, there are now two species with the common name "Puerto Rican racer". I'll move this page to Borikenophis portoricensis, and make a dab for the common name. Plantdrew (talk) 20:29, 11 September 2013 (UTC)