At 08:28 12/08/98 +0930, Tony Russell wrote:
>Well, you've all had your chance and nobody got it right. A cocky on Yorke
>Peninsula showed me to his Jumping Jennies which turned out to be dear old
>White-browed Babblers. Tony.
Excuse me Tony, but thats exactly what I said:
>>What's a Jumping Jenny? Yorke Peninsula vernacular for a ????
>>
>Well, on Yorke its not going to be a red-breasted yahoo (= Grey-crowned
>Babbler) or a CWA bird (= Appostlebird) so it must be a common old Go-away
>(White-browed Babbler)! Next.
David James
PO BOX 5225
Townsville Mail Centre 4810
asurements, allozyme sequencing,
courtship displays and voice. Sure DNA studies have greater potential than
most other indices but they still just provide some simplified numerical
interpretations of what the real genome is:
Step 1. Blend up the genetic material (usually a tiny subset of the
genome), add other ingredients according to the recipe and record the
results as a few numbers out of many possible billions that you could get
by changing the recipe a little. bunch of numbers.
Step 2. Blend up the numbers in a computer package that grinds away for a
few days and compares all their x to the power of x-1 combinations and
spits out a few graphs.
Step 3. Pick the graph you like the best.
Step 4. Publish
Step 5. Hope someone else doesn't do the same study independantly 'cause
they won't get the same answer.
Well, maybe thats a bit synical, but don't think that sequencing DNA will
always give the true answer.
The key position of the "interim taxonomy" for albatrosses is that what
were once RECOGNISED as subspecies are now (for the interim?) RECOGNISED as
species and what were once recognised as groups or subgenera (the great
albatrossessssss versus the mollymawks versus the northern hemisphere
species versus the sooties) are now recognised as genera. Meanwhile the
scientific facts haven't changed only the attitude of (some) people towards
the concept of Albatrosses, which isn,t altogether a bad thing.
Robert Berry wrote:
>
>
>----------
>> From: John Penhallurick <>
>>
>> I see the splits as justified because mtDNA sequencing is at last
>providing
>> us with reasonably definitive in the area of species limits.
>
>John, have you seen the mtDNA evidence for splitting the Albatrosses? Or is
>the evidence nissing?
David James
PO BOX 5225
Townsville Mail Centre 4810
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