I guess it depends on how much tissue it needs, and whether you could
design something to scrape a tiny bit off. I don't really expect such a
thing to be able to do this, and was responding to the journalistic hype
that was presented for the devices. They made it sound like your could
merely point it at something, like a barcode reader in a supermarket,
and it would tell you the species.
In reality I would expect it would be quickly contaminated by mud, etc,
if you tried it.
Peter Shute
Evan Beaver wrote on Friday, 29 February 2008 1:48 PM:
> There's a little problem with this in that you need tissue,
> DNA for it to work. In metallurgy we would call it
> destructive testing. So the bird would have to either get
> swabbed, defecate, shed a feather or skin cell onto the detector for
> it to work.
>
> EB
>
> On 2/29/08, Peter Shute <> wrote:
>> A further thought on this. If this device ever really became
>> available, and worked as described, one could place one somewhere in
>> a wader roost and record whatever walked on it. Maybe hook it up to
>> a camera to take an automatic photograph (and submit a Birdline)
>> whenever something interesting turns up.
>>
>> Peter Shute
>>
>> wrote on Thursday, 28 February
>> 2008 10:58 PM:
>>
>>> Probably true, but having a fieldguide doesn't mean you can
>>> automatically id things. More people would get involved if it was
>>> easy. Look how many more people take photos now that digital has
>>> taken a lot of the guess work out of it.
>>>
>>> Plant id is very difficult in urban areas where it could be from
>>> anywhere in the world, so it would be useful for that. You could
>>> tell what you were really getting from the nursery.
>>>
>>> Wouldn't it be interesting to be able to id any feather or bit of
>>> fur or you find?
>>>
>>> It certainly wouldn't make BARC obsolete if you need a feather to
>>> id a bird.
>>>
>>> Peter Shute
>>>
>>>
>>> --------------------------
>>> Sent using BlackBerry
>>>
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