David
Interesting!
There are cockatoos in the Indonesian archipelago that look very, very
similar to Sulphur-cresteds - I have had a great deal of difficulty
separating them in the field. There were historical links, including
extensive trading links, between the Indonesian archipelago and
classical India/China (and hence europe) that well-predated the
Renaissance. On this basis, IMHO, it is not at all unlikely that an
Indonesian-sourced cockatoo made its way back to europe.
But the $64 question is whether the cockatoo in this case really can
definitively be determined as C. galerita.
If so then two options operate. The first is that a stray
Sulphur-crested flew to Indonesia. The second is that one was picked up
in trade directly with Australia. But again there is a complication -
Sulphur-cresteds are not exactly thick in the sky across northern Australia.
I look forward to the denoument.
Con
On 13/05/2014 6:18 PM, David McDonald (personal) wrote:
Forgive me if this is something that everyone but me already knows
about: 'Cockatoo perched in Renaissance painting forces rethink of
history. Discovery of an animal more closely associated with Sydney
than Venice is leading to a revision of early trading networks'
Oliver Milman, The Guardian, Wednesday 19 March 2014 13.54 AEST
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/19/cockatoo-perched-in-renaissance-painting-forces-rethink-of-history
David
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