Talk:Crotalus oreganus

message: I know that timber rattler is about a species in eastern North America, but it's what we sometime call the species of rattlesnake here in BC, which AFAIK is crotalus oreganus.  We do call it the Pacific rattler, but also the Timber rattler.  Should I add that or do I need a citation for the usage.  Also do animal pages get the Wikiproject templates for jurisdictions in their range (e.g. Wikiproject Oregon, Wikiproject Idaho etc)?Skookum1 17:50, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In this case, definitely cite a good reference. I have no references for any other snake being called by that name other than C. horridus. As for the question of whether Wikiproject templates should apply to animal pages, I don't know, but I hope not. After all, there are many species that occur in many different countries, states, counties, etc., but take C. oreganus: what would be the point of applying at least five different Wikiproject templates to this talk page (BC, plus four US states)? --Jwinius 02:54, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, of course.  It's just that they're unusual in Canada....I guess, although come to think of it there's a species in Ontario somewhere, no?  I know in Alberta....I'm thinking like a "small BCer" - they're a curiosity here, and only in one certain area.Skookum1 06:09, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Timber rattler?

message: I don't see why mentioning BC by name is "too specific" when individual US states are named; if crotalus oreganus is also found in Alberta and/or Saskatchewan, then the appropriate usage is "Western Canada" (note caps), not "southwestern Canada" which is a useless and also rather POV reference (long story).  I reverted the change to "southwestern Canada" - if this species is in Alberta, it can be so amended to "parts of Western Canada".  "Southwestern Canada" is subjective and highly testy on this side of the line as being not-relevant; "southwest of what?" - some amorphous "centre" of Canada in the Northwest Territories or Nunavut??  Please use Canadian usages for Canadian references, and not American-flavoured ones.....Skookum1 (talk) 17:38, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Testy indeed. My intention was simply to mention one or more continents or countries in the introduction. In this case, British Columbia is simply not a country. Would "extreme southwestern Canada" be okay? Otherwise just "Canada" will suffice. I like to keep specific geographic range info, such as British Columbia and individual states in the US, in the Geographic range section. --Jwinius (talk) 18:11, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: "Southwestern Canada" is not in the argot, except from people who want BC to be not-in-the-Pacific-Northwest-because-it's-Canada.  The usage, if you insist, is "Western Canada", though that includes everything to the Ontario border; "and in the Canadian province of British Columbia", which is the customary usage on other Wiki pages when something applies to only one province (Canada's a huge place, as you must know).  There are rattlers in southern Alberta, I'm pretty sure, around Lethbridge and Pincher Creek, maybe Medicine Hat and into the Cypress Hills of southern Saskatchewan; I don't think it's the same species, though which it would be I don't know.Skookum1 (talk) 18:26, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This is too silly for me to waste any more time on. Have it your way. --Jwinius (talk) 21:42, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Proper geography is not silly, nor isrespecting the Canadian perspective or usage when an article mentions Canada (I note that this article didn't even bother mentioning the Canadian part of the range until I dropped by...).  My point is that if the same species is that found also in Alberta, then "Western Canada" is the proper usage, not "southwewetsrn Canada".  If it's only in British Columbia, the convention is to name the location by province, as saying "Canada" means a whole wider range, as does "parts of Western (or southwestern) Canada".  Even in an intro line.....Skookum1 (talk) 04:17, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You still haven't read the Geographic range section, have you? The information was always there. It's just that the summary in the introduction was incomplete. As a matter of fact, it's still missing northwestern Mexico, so I'd better fix that. --Jwinius (talk) 11:33, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The "Pacific slope" in the table might be misleading to folks as it would lead people to think these things occur west of the Cascades in B.C.  It might be good to use intermontane plateau, or something like that.--Windustsearch (talk) 07:50, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This is one of those subjects that, I fear, could be argued about for a long time without resulting in any meaningful improvement. I think the best solution would be to produce a new article called "Pacific slope" or "Pacific versant" to explain what it is. More than a few of our crotaline articles could link to such a page. --Jwinius (talk) 09:30, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

text: Interior Plateau is a physiographic province and is what you'll see in technical writings.  The argument against using it (they don't occur throughout it) applies moreso to Pacific Slope.  Okanogan is a Washington State physiographic province, not a British Columbia one.--Windustsearch (talk) 01:24, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't you find it curious/absurd that a physiographic province could end at an abstract line drawn across the landscape - very similar landscape, with a common geology and part of the same drainage/montane/plateau system.  If you're referring to the Okanogan Highland, it's ths same as the Okanagan Highland, which is a physiographic region of British Columbia (S. Holland, Landforms of British Columbia, BC Govt, 1976, which is the authoritative geographic cataloguing of BC's landforms and the basis of both BCGNIS and the Canadian GeoNames Database).  That the US has one set of physiographic regions and Canada has another and BC has another makes this all the more complex to resolve; except physiographic regions aren't what's relevant to species.  In otherr words, it all depends on whose "technical literature" you're talking about.  Ecoregions are not defined by the same parameters as physiographic regions, geologic regions are different again, and weirdly enough biogeoclimatic zones aren't the same as ecoregions, and geographic regions are another matter again (geography and physiography don't always share the same defioing parameters).  In the case of hte Okanagan, it's such a well-known and important geographic region of British Columbia, and an identifiable ecologic one, that your statement strikes me as somewhat silly; and Interior Plateau spans the border anyway; it can't help but do so.  Unless, smoehow, nature observes the artificial border that was established in 1846 (see Oregon Treaty), which is one of the world's truly great geopolitical absurdities, as was observed at the time it was created and required an incredible amount of hassle to survey because of the terrain it bisexts.  The Thompson Plateau, together with the Okangan Highland, are pretty much the defining physiographic regions in BC in which the timber rattler/Pacific rattlesnake is found ("timber rattler" AFAIK is the same species, it's just a term used when it's found at high altitudes, which in that region are typically forested though some is rangeland).  In addition to the Thompson Plateau, the rattlesnake range in BC includes the northeast flank of the Cascade Range, i.e. the Keremeos and Pricneton areas, plus the southern Clear Range and the country northeast of there to the Bonaparte-Kamloops Plateaus, which are an extension of the Thompson Plateau north of the Thompson River.  I know there's snake in the Kelowna area, I'm not sure about Vernon (at the north end of Okanagan Lake) but definitely once you're into the Shuswap/Thompson basin (north of Spallumcheen there's no snake in that area.  Once again, I don't see why physiographic definitions are what's used in wahtever range of technical literuture you're reading, but I have to stress that academics of all kinds screw up geography all the time, especially when there's ocnflicting systems of definition; and in BC's case Ottawa and Victoria don't share teh same filing cabinets ("Ottawa"=federal government and "Victoria"=provincial government).  And rest assured that the Okanagan is a recognized region in British Columbia, and a readily-identifiable "spatial object" in BC, as well as a cultural one.; when we say "the Okanagan" it refers to what lies between or along hte boundary between the Thompson Plateau and Okanagan Highlands landforms; one is west of Okanagan Lake, the other east of it.  and "the Canadian Okanagan" and the "American Okanogan" share a lot in common; if US definitions end at the 49th parallel, that's national myopia applied to landforms and is really, again, quite absurd; and it so happens that BC's Okanagan Highland was named for the American Okanogan Highland deliberately by S. Holland; so whether you're meaning the Okanogan/Okanagan Country, or you're meaning the basin of the Okanogan River, or you're meaning hte Okanagan Highland, there's no way they're not the same physiographic region; and your "technical literature" needs some revision, and its authors need some education about what lies north of the border (or some effort to correlate BC, Canadaian and US systems of definition).  I'll consult the BC Fish & Wildlife Branch's info on the rattlesnake, if I can find anything, and get back at some point (Fish & Wildlife is a branch of the British Columbia Ministry of Environment - I know because I used to work for the Water Rights Branch and F&W were down the hall...). i.e. for the specifics of the range, and what they use for their physiographic description, which to me would seem to be more relevant than anything in literature published east of the Rockies or south of 49....Skookum1 (talk) 13:10, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: "parts of BC" vs "'southwestern' Canada"

message: Hi I just read a news article that the northern pacific rattlesnake the southern pacific rattlesnake the Arizona black rattlesnake the Grand Canyon rattlesnake the Great Basin rattlesnake are actually separate species not subspecies. Herpetology  (talk) 18:19, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: A news article isn't necessarily the best source of taxonomy information. If there's scientific literature to justify changes to existing taxonomy then perhaps we change the article or add a mention of it. It does seem like zoologists are always squabbling over taxonomy, but unless there's been a real breakthrough the data presented here is accurate. Can you link to the article? Connorlong90 (talk) 06:57, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  New species not subspecies 

message: — Assignment last updated by JustinBieber18 (talk) 07:46, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki Education assignment: California Natural History