But is the comment by Richard Prum genuine? If so, he misspelt his own name,
and I thought it odd that he didn't even discuss the possibility of staining,
but at least he asked for a sample.
I'm not saying it's definitely staining and not a mutation, just that it's odd
that the possibility of staining has barely been entertained in the articles or
the comments.
Peter Shute
-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Taylor
Sent: Friday, 15 May 2009 9:36 AM
To: Peter Shute
Cc:
Subject: more Sydney Blue sparrow photos
On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 11:13:49PM +1000, Peter Shute wrote:
> Can you tell me why the possibility of this bird having fallen into
> some blue stuff has been discounted or not considered?
I'm sure its the first thing that comes to most people's mind. We've all seen
birds with stained plumage. I thought the distribution of the colouring
appears too regular for an accidental event and maybe he sparrow had been
captured and stained deliberately
Its notable that Richard Prum thinks the bird may be an unusual mutation.
He know a lot about the topic, e.g.:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v396/n6706/abs/396028a0.html
But of course he's only seen photos.
Andrew
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