Hi all,
I have apologised to Martin offline, but I just wanted to say sorry to all for my snappy response yesterday. I must have been a bit crankier than usual. While I stand by my defense of scientific evidence over gut feelings, Martin is of course correct that people should be allowed to challenge the established “facts” based on new evidence, and I applaud him for going about it in the right way. I look forward to reading the paper when it is released.
Regards, Chris
On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 11:52 PM, martin cachard
> > G’day all > > Since it seems that it was me that opened this can of worms about these > owls being different, I thought it best to add a little more to try to > clarify my point … > > Firstly, I am not technically qualified to question the science behind > C&B’s (& other taxonomists’) decisions as far as their taxonomic conclusions > go. > > Secondly, I strictly adhere to C&B 2008 for my personal Aust records list, > beause that is what has been accepted by Birds Australia (& others) as the > official list. No problems there. > > Thirdly, I have no problems accepting that similar looking birds can be of > a different species, & that different looking birds can be of the same > species. Therefore, I fully accept that Yellow Rosella’s are a race of > nominate Crimson etc etc…. & these are recorded by me as per C&B 2008. > > Forthly, I apologise in advance for my layman’s terminology… > > But what I, and some other local FNQ bird field experts feel, is that we > should still be able to be in a position to question certain things that are > still currently accepted as “known” in the literature. Afterall, isn’t it > healthy to question & not just to accept what is written ??!! > > It wasn’t all that long ago that Bassian Thrush up here (race cuneata) was > “known” to have the same minimal white on it’s tail pattern as the more > southern birds, but now we know, through much questioning & revisiting of > specimens & further field work & publishing of findings, that this indeed is > very wrong – the tail pattern up here on these birds is nothing like the > southern Bassian, but rather that it actually resembles more closely the > tail pattern of a Russet-tailed Thrush! It is only because we have > questioned what was thought to be “known”, that now we have learned > something different about our FNQ cuneata thrush. We have put a lot of > recent field work into this bird up here & only now are we beginning to > understand a little more about it. There are other species too that we are > looking into very closely up here, but we will do much more work before > making our findings public…. these cans of worms won’t be opened in this > way – they will be put forward scientifically. > … > > Our concern up here with the lumping of these 2 owls is based on a whole > lot more than just how different the 2 birds look (sorry Chris) – we accept > that this is not enough & we are currently working on what will eventually > become a paper down the track. This will obviously take into account a whole > lot more than merely how these 2 birds differ in appearance…… > Just give us some time to finish working on this & hopefully we can provide > enough science to show why we think that Lesser Sooties should be given full > species status (although some of it will be field-based – I’m pretty sure > that this approach can still be called scientific…!!). > > David’s comments on the strange barred Southern Boobook south of Cairns is > very interesting indeed….. more work needs to be done on race lurida & > certainly without any hesitation, David’s barred birds need to be > investigated as well…. we still don’t have all the answers… > > In closing, I think it’s fair to say that there is so much still out there > that we don’t know about for sure – so let us keep on questioning what has > been learned already & then, & only then, will we keep on learning. It does > pay in science to keep an open mind… > > All the best > > Martin Cachard > Cairns > > > > > > > To: birding-aus@vicnet.net.au > > From: mike.honeyman@optusnet.com.au > > Date: Wed, 4 May 2011 21:38:36 +1000 > > Subject: [Birding-Aus] Sooty Owls versus Skuas…. > > > > Hi Tony > > > > Some problems with using mtDNA, and the methodology used by Cohen, > > were picked up in a discussion that stemmed from Cohen’s skua paper > > that you referenced see Braun & Brumfield, and it would appear the > > 0.44% divergence does not stand up to scrutiny : http:// > > www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1689160/pdf/ > > 9RJY8JW6PRM46DBQ_265_995.pdf > > > > Most recently Chu, Eisenschenk & Zhu proposed a different phylogeny > > for Stercorariidae that had S. pomarinus as sister to all the > > ‘catharacta’ and not most closely related to C. skua! Which is now of > > course S. skua….. > > (ref: Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2009, Volume 157, > > Issue 3, pg612-62). > > > > We looked at skua phylogeny recently for a practical at CSU on the > > ornithology course – my head is still spinning! > > > > Cheers > > > > Mike > > > > > > =============================== > > > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, > > send the message: > > unsubscribe > > (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) > > to: birding-aus-request@vicnet.net.au > > > > http://birding-aus.org > > =============================== > > =============================== > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, > send the message: > unsubscribe > (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) > to: birding-aus-request@vicnet.net.au > > http://birding-aus.org > =============================== > ===============================
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