birding-aus

RFI: Lyrebirds as origin of songbirds

To: <>
Subject: RFI: Lyrebirds as origin of songbirds
From: Syd Curtis <>
Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2004 11:30:41 +1000
I recently had the pleasure of taking two American visitors to Lamington
National Park for a couple of days.  They had come to Australia because of a
particular interest in lyrebirds.  After hearing Albert's in Lamington they
were going to Victoria to visit Healesville and Sherbrooke Forest for
Superbs.

I was asked what did I think of the argument that all songbirds originated
in Australia and that the lyrebird is the "oldest" songbird?

Being a lyrebird addict from way back, I like the idea, but that doesn't
make it correct, and I have no expertise in evolution generally or birds in
particular.  I did point out that lyrebirds and scrubbirds have fewer
syringeal muscles than the general run of Oscines, and that it seemed to me
that evolution towards a more complex syrinx was more likely than the
reverse.  But really, I'm right out of my depth here.

Now I'm intrigued.  I'd be most grateful for comment from any birding-aus
experts.

TIA

Syd Curtis in Brisbane.


PS  And BTW I also like the idea that flying-foxes (fruit-bats) are primates
that evolved flight rather than bats that became vegetarians.

S

--------------------------------------------
Birding-Aus is now on the Web at
www.birding-aus.org
--------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message 'unsubscribe
birding-aus' (no quotes, no Subject line)
to 


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU