RE: Black and white ground dwellers

["Cas and Lisa Liber" <>]

Thanks for the replies all, I keep thiking of a 70s coffee table book called
'Australian Bird Wonders' with a kookaburra on hte front. Anyway, I think I
can find chisolm's book readily enough.
Cas

  _____  

From: Philip Veerman  
Sent: Sunday, October 19, 2008 2:42 PM
To: Syd Curtis; Cas and Lisa Liber; 
Subject: Black and white ground dwellers


Yes. It is a reasonably regarded as case of Muellerian mimicry. This refers
to that these B & W passerines tend to be aggressive in nest defence and
often can be found nesting in close proximity. Muellerian mimicry is well
known among other groups of fauna, not too common in birds. The book by
Chisholm is rather rambling but it comes up with several interesting ideas.
Scientific writing is (hopefully) far more rigorous now, although given the
time of his writing, he was probably well ahead of others in his thoughts.
His book is findable at the occasional book fair.
 
Philip