birding-aus

Pacific Gull

To: "Tim Dolby" <>
Subject: Pacific Gull
From: John Tongue <>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:19:36 +1000
Hi Tim,
All sounds pretty good (I'd push for Tasmanian Gull!!!), except for one small 'error'. I'm sure you meant to say that only the EAST coast of Victoria and Tasmania borders the Pacific Ocean (someone has to be the pedant).

Cheers,
JohnTongue
PS. maybe the scientific name of the "new" Tasmania Gull should be reset at Larus dolbiensis??


On 15/08/2008, at 3:52 PM, Tim Dolby wrote:

Hi all,

Just for a bit of fun (it's Friday after all) I thought I'd question the appropriateness of the name of the Pacific Gull.

Recently Grant Brosie asked about the status of Pacific Gull in NSW. Basically it seems that they are uncommon to rare in NSW. NSW borders the Pacific Ocean. By contrast they are common in Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia. From what I can gather only the west coast of Victoria and Tasmania borders the Pacific Ocean (I could be wrong, in which case everything I'm saying is wrong). The rest of these areas either border the India Ocean / or Southern Ocean - and the Pacific Gull is common in an area known as Bass Striat.

So the question is why is it called a Pacific Gull? Surely it should be called something else!

For example the Atherton Scrubwren is called the Atherton Scrubwren because it's found on the Atherton Tableland, the Chatham Albatross is a Chatham Albatross because it breeds on the Chatham Islands. Similarly the Northern Scrub-Robin is called a a Northern Scrub- Robin because it's found in northern Australia, and the Southern Scrub-Robin... well you get the idea.

So, here are some suggestion as alternative names for the Pacific Gull (Larus pacificus), most of which are stupid:

 Bass Strait Gull
 Great Southern Gull or just Southern Gull
 Victorian Gull
 Tasmanian Gull
 South Australian Gull (maybe not)
 Western Australian Gull
 Indian Ocean Gull
 Large-billed Gull (although Larus crassirostris, the scientific
          name for the Black-tailed Gull, means large-billed gull)
 Very-large-billed Gull
   Red-tipped-billed Gull
 Large Black-backed Gull
 Pacific Gull (oh, hang on.. whoops)
 Australian Gull
 Simon (why not?)
 Dolby's Gull (because I thought about this in the first place!)

Cheers,

Tim Dolby






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