owls, now diverged to very off topic.

["Philip Veerman" <>]

I have been corrected on using the words "broad biological principle of ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" this morning. Thanks to the one cog list member for alerting me to this so quickly. So I will de-emphasise this and try to clarify it, I hope correctly but a little research shows it is a murky story. If you wish to check this, there is heaps on this subject on the internet. This very old (19th century) idea was only ever at best poorly defined and is now mostly superseded idea. It was considered to help illustrate some aspects of connections between animal development and evolution. However I was clearly wrong to call it a "principle". At best it is an idea or model but broad because it has been considered across major animal groups. It has - perhaps due to the pomposity of its wording - been misused. I suspect part of the problem is in the word "recapitulates". To take it as a literal is nonsensical. Beyond that, provided it is not misunderstood I think it has some use. I don't see my use of it as wrong use but I'm not sure. That will need some more thought. I was using it here to the extent that commonly, closely related species in which the adults have evolved to having distinctive calls, still often share similar begging calls of young and this presumably due to evolutionary history.

 

Philip

   -----Original Message-----
From: Philip Veerman [
Sent: Friday, 1 February 2013 11:41 AM
To: 'jude hopwood'; 'COG'
Subject: RE: [canberrabirds] owls

Can I offer some ideas. Firstly Boobooks are known common breeding species in our area. Barking Owls are not. Though it is always possible that Barking Owls could turn up in our area. My reading is that the recent mention of trilling calls by young owls are entirely consistent with young Boobooks and I see nothing in it to suggest Barking Owls (unless good further evidence comes forward). As a very general observation, it is common for the begging calls of young of a whole range of species within the same genus or family to be very similar or maybe indistinguishable (by us). Just an example of the broad biological principle of "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny".

 

Philip