What fascinates me about new phylogenies of birds is this, that whatever new
arrangements are proposed they tend to leave the families intact. Indeed
once confusing simialrities owing to convergence are eliminated (ie
Australian Treecreepers v Old World treecreepers), it seems that what we are
left with is a array of families in which there are few doubts as to
relatedness, all the debate is about higher relations.
David James reports of this author that he separates Pigeons from
Sandgrouse, which is not surprising, as Sandgrouse don't look much like
Pigeons:-)
Which leads me back to a hobby-horse of mine, which si that any ordering of
birds that attempts to incorporate a phylogeny is doomed, because such an
order is bound to keep on changing. Therefore what we need is a wholly
artificial order of the bird fmailies in alphabetical order, which would not
change so much.
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John Leonard (Dr),
PO Box 243,
Woden, ACT 2606
"The world is currently experiencing technical problems.
Please do not adjust your brains."
http://www.spirit.net.au/~jleonard
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