Yellow-spotted or Graceful Honeyeater?
By Birding-Aus, on September 14th, 2013
It is useful to see the discussion about how similar these two species are. As is reference to the earlier Wingspan article. I wonder as to the importance of identifying the species in these photos. Comments suggest the photos aren’t great comparison and don’t include calls. Neither (or even the 1) individual will ever be knowingly seen again to enable verification. Comments suggest both are common in this area. So how is the record important? I have no experience with either these two species (maybe luckily going by this) that I recall. If I encountered either during my only 1 – 2 week trip to Cairns in 2005, then I didn’t identify them. Philip =============================== 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 ===============================
Many thanks for that further effort Andrew. I look forward to reading the paper. Martin On 15 September 2013 14:35, Andrew Taylor < andrewt@cse.unsw.edu.au > wrote: — Martin Butterfield http://franmart.blogspot.com.au/ =============================== To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) http://birding-aus.org ===============================
Many thanks Andrew that is most helpful . I’d love to read the paper but although the authors of the paper have allowed free access to it, Researchgate rejects people who do not have an academic/museum email address. Martin On 15 September 2013 13:03, Andrew Taylor < andrewt@cse.unsw.edu.au > wrote: — Martin Butterfield http://franmart.blogspot.com.au/ =============================== To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) http://birding-aus.org ===============================
On Sun, Sep 15, 2013 at 10:35:56AM +1000, Martin Butterfield wrote: Not a taxonomist, but Yellow Spotted & Graceful can recognize each other by call without worrying about the plumage subtleties discussed in this thread. DNA-based studies suggest Yellow-spotted & Lewin’s are sister taxa which arose (split) in Australia and Graceful is their closest relative but is thought to have invaded Australia from PNG about a million years ago. Paper here but maybe you need to join researchgate to see it: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6882375_Speciation_dynamics_in_the_Australo-Papuan_Meliphaga_honeyeaters Andrew =============================== To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) http://birding-aus.org ===============================
As the range of both these species is (unfortunately) some 1000s of kilometres from anywhere that I am likely to be in the near future I have not paid full attention to this discussion. However given the subtleties of distinguishing the species on field marks I wonder whether thought has been given to uniting them as a single species. I realise that until Apple or Google release their DNA sequencing app the nuances of appearance will have to do for field work, but I wonder if a taxonomist could comment on the degree of difference between the genetic composition of the two species and whether they could be considered for lumping? Martin On 13 September 2013 19:52, David James < burunglaut07@yahoo.com> wrote: — Martin Butterfield http://franmart.blogspot.com.au/ =============================== To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) http://birding-aus.org ===============================