@charlie, please note that the Lampropeltis discussion is about species, not subspecies. I don’t know if that affects your thinking about it.
Sorry if i am mixing taxa up. It changes my view a little bit but not much. They just seem too close together to distinguish based on range alone in cases where the snakes are found by the river.
Whether or not this will happen (i.e. that it will turn out the location correctly predicts the identification) depends on whether the taxa cross locations. If they do (and esp if they can interbreed) then it will not, and if they do not then it will do just fine - even if/when location is not the actual thing that ‘makes’ the species. And makes here means is a character that separates populations into groups, at least one of which is both homogenous and distinct from all the other groups. So sometimes that will be / will not be the case when a different character is checked, like the genitals.
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In the case of these spiders, they are distinct species that could in theory hybridise. The “boundary” is a significant one, but the possibility of movement between does exist. I think subsp differentiation on geography is important, as it represents opportunity for future speciation. Silver eyes (birds) are a good example of this…
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