The good, the bad and the ugly: Australian snake taxonomists and a history of the taxonomy of Australia's venomous snakes

Snake venomics of two poorly known Hydrophiinae: Comparative proteomics of the venoms of terrestrial Toxicocalamus longissimus and marine Hydrophis cyanocinctus

“…Because of their high toxicity, the venoms of medically problematic Australian elapids have been the focus of considerable study over the past 70 years [49][50][51]. Despite these accomplishments, the venoms of many of them remain largely unexplored.…”

Revision of the Genus Leiopython Hubrecht 1879 (Serpentes: Pythonidae) with the Redescription of Taxa Recently Described by Hoser (2000) and the Description of New Species

“…-Hoser's (2000) introduction of Leiopython hoserae was heavily criticized by subsequent workers because of a lack of evidence (e.g., Wü ster et al, 2001;Williams et al, 2006). The author had distinguished this taxon from Leiopython albertisii by body color and by larger average size only.…”

“…Kluge (1993) contradicted this study in parts, examining 121 external and internal morphological and behavioral characters in a phylogenetic study, finding evidence for the distinction of the taxon albertisii from other python species and, therefore, resurrected the oldest available synonym Leiopython Hubrecht. More recently, Hoser (2000) introduced two new subspecies and one species to the genus, but subsequent workers did not follow this taxonomic arrangement because of inadequate descriptions and the lack of evidence for the taxa described (see Wü ster et al, 2001;Williams et al, 2006). Besides the weakly defined diagnoses and erroneous authorship (i.e., assigning Leiopython albertisii to Gray 1842 instead of Peters and Doria 1878), emendation of the subspecific names is required (Wü ster et al, 2001) because of erroneous latinization (barkeri and bennetti were both named after sets of two persons).…”

Annotated checklist of the recent and extinct pythons (Serpentes, Pythonidae), with notes on nomenclature, taxonomy, and distribution

“…One author, the amateur herpetologist Raymond T. Hoser of Victoria, Australia, has caused considerable confusion in python taxonomy over the last decade by describing numerous taxa (6 new genera and subgenera, 4 new species, and 19 new subspecies) in the non-peer-reviewed literature without providing adequate descriptions for his proposed new taxa (for discussions see Aplin 1999, 2002, Wüster et al 2001, Williams et al 2006, 2008, Schleip 2008). Hoser rarely included important taxonomic information or data on scale counts, numbers of specimen examined, statistics, or the results of DNA analysis.…”

“…In general, the professional herpetological community has rarely accepted Hoser's taxa (Wüster et al 2001, Aplin 2002, Williams et al 2006, 2008, Schleip 2008, Zaher et al 2009) unless one of his numerous names turns out to be valid and a senior synonym based on more exacting scientific work carried out by professional researchers, as was the case with Broghammerus.…”