G'day Dave,
Consider the Eastern Reef Egrets and Grey Goshawks that both have grey
and white morphs. Similarly, many sea birds have pale, intermediate
and dark morphs.
It's a bit like people having different hair, skin and eye colours. I
think we place too much emphasis on bird plumage, which is why we get
so thrown by immature, moulting and leucoplastic birds. Just a bit of
different colour can get us thinking we are seeing a different species
...
Regards, Laurie.
On Friday, February 23, 2007, at 02:30 PM, Dave Torr wrote:
Maybe I'm missing something (and I'm no expert on DNA!). The reference
on "splits" shows a number of what I have always thought of as "good"
species anyway, with no indication of what they have been split from
(or what has been split from them).
And the DNA lumps shows Blue-winged Teal and Cinnamon Teal to be 100%
similar - yet visually at least they are very different...... Since as
a "layman" I assumed DNA controlled the appearance of an animal how
can this be the case?
Please excuse the ignorance but I would love someone to explain in
simple terms.....
<>
< DNA splits >
http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/3183.php?from=90533
Unique DNA barcodes for provisional new bird species were obtained from
these look-alike specimens.
< DNA lumps>
http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/3185.php?from=90533
These groups of bird species were shown to have virtually identical
DNA.
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