Would you say Blood Pythons + Short-Tailed Pythons, and Burmese Pythons share some close heritage?

[lizardminion]

Is it me, or do Burmese and short tailed pythons seem like they're closely related? I've looked quite closely at their patterns and noticed they share some similarities. Their facial marks are quite the same- get rid of the blotch on the burm's head and they may be the same. I've also seen blood pythons with the same neck patterns as Burmese pythons- with the stripes along the upper sides and square-like blotches along the back. Lastly, I must note their body shape. Unlike ball pythons, Burms and bloods don't have round peanut shaped heads, but rather squarish or triangular shaped heads, with flat-ended snouts. Both pythons are very thick bodied, with bloods having much shorter lengths and being slightly less thick.

 

[The Snark]

I'm going to have to ask you what you consider closely related. In the general time scale of evolution we could be talking about a mere 5,000 millenniums, give or take an ice age or two.
We need the geneticists to weigh in one this one.

 

[Najakeeper]

First of all, using common names is a terrible idea when you are comparing species as it leads to confusion. From my understanding, Python curtus breitensteini is "Blood Python" and Python curtus brongersmai is the "short tailed python". These two are obviously very closely related as they are in the same species therefor they can breed and produce viable offspring. As for Python molurus bivittatus, the "Burmese python", it is a different species but it is another "Python" from Southeast Asia so yes, they are probably "more" closely related with the Python curtus when you compare them to a Kangroo or to a Python regius, which is an African Python by the way. Now, I have not read any research done on this and my analysis is purely based on locality but it is good enough at least for this case.

Just be careful about comparing shapes and patterns on animals as they can merely be plastic adaptations, mimics or sign of convergent evolution. An untrained eye could easily say that a Morelia viridis, which is an Australasian python looks very similar to a Corallus caninus, which is a South America boa but they are not. Of course, I am using the word "related" very losely here due explained the reasons above by the Snark.

ps: Here is a Phylogenetic tree that I managed to find.