Morphotype / morph (in CC amphib glossary)

John

John

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Morphotype, often abbreviated to morph*, is a term used to describe an infrasubspecific group of animals distinguishable from other animals of the same species or subspecies on the basis of morphologic characters. For example, the cannibalistic morph of Ambystoma mavortium mavortium has a wider, flatter head, with an extra row of vomerine teeth which are often recurved.

* The word morph is usually employed incorrectly by salamander enthusiasts to mean "metamorphose".
 
* usually employed correctly by poison frog enthusiasts to describe a particular flavour of species or subspecies e.g Oophaga pumilio - “blue jeans”, “salt creek”, “escudo” etc.

I'm not one of them by the way...;)
 
Mark said:
* usually employed correctly by poison frog enthusiasts to describe a particular flavour of species or subspecies e.g Oophaga pumilio - “blue jeans”, “salt creek”, “escudo” etc.
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Actually I've got a feeling they are doing that incorrectly because those most of those variants are not described scientifically, yet.

Mark said:
I'm not one of them by the way...;)
Click to expand...
Right, and I'm the Queen (of England).
 
Yes you’re right – those pesky scientists need to pull their fingers out.

They use it in the right context however and with the absence of something more scientifically concrete the hobbyist’s “morphs” will have to do. I believe we do something comparable with the term “race” in relation to C.pyrrhogaster.
 
To make this glossary true-to-life, I think we also need to include the colloquial (admittedly incorrect) usage of the word morph.

Morph (colloquial): shorthand for "metamorph" or "metamorphosis". Often used to refer to newly-metamorphosed juvenile caudates. For the more correct meaning of the term, see above.
 
Morph is a valid shorthand for the noun metamorph but as a verb it belongs in the realms of Scifi, not science.
 
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