[Birdtalk] Fw: [IBLE] Potential species splits

[James McIntyre]

Relayed from IBLE.

Jim
_______________________________________
The following was posted on the Birdchat listserve.



Denise Hughes 
Caldwell, ID 
idahobirder at hotmail.com 



.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kenn Kaufman <kenn.kaufman at worldnet.att.net>
Date: Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 12:21 AM
Subject: [BIRDCHAT] Potential species splits
To: BIRDCHAT at listserv.arizona.edu


I haven't seen this mentioned on BirdChat yet, but the latest issue of The Auk (journal of the American Ornithologists' Union) includes two studies that could result in raising the bird list for North America by two species, and raising the state lists for California and Texas by one each. Based on DNA studies, these papers provide strong evidence that Western Scrub-Jay is really two species (with a possible third in Mexico), and that Eastern Meadowlark is two species.  Of course, such splits would not become official until the AOU Committee on Classification and Nomenclature votes on them, but the evidence looks pretty compelling.

More information is here:

http://snipr.com/7rocb

I know that some birders are put off by this kind of "armchair listing," getting life birds after the fact just because of a taxonomic change.  To me, though, it's a kind of payoff for having paid attention to all birds and their variations when we travel.  Regardless, birders have even more reason now to take note of meadowlarks and scrub-jays.

Kenn Kaufman
Oak Harbor, Ohio

BirdChat Guidelines: http://www.ksu.edu/audubon/chatguidelines.html
Archives: http://listserv.arizona.edu/archives/birdchat.html

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://secureserver.securesites.net/pipermail/birdtalk/attachments/20081212/320a3bba/attachment.htm