FreeLists / tn-bird / [tn-bird] Re: Interesting magazine article

["Wallace Coffey" <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxx>]

Dear David Trently:

Your credibility among the birding world
would be greatly enhanced
if you would refrain from posting to TN-Birds on
April Fools day.  For that matter, mine would
also.  There was a better report than your
"McDonald's" Weaver-Finch going around
last April 1. :-)

Wallace Coffey
Bristol, TN


----- Original Message -----
From: "David Trently" <dtrently@xxxxxxx>
To: <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, April 01, 2002 7:05 AM
Subject: [tn-bird] Interesting magazine article


>
> On Saturday, I received my May issue of "Avian Nomenclature" magazine and
> read a very interesting article. I had been wondering about this
> possibility, and it had been discussed a couple years ago on the BirdChat
> listserve - we didn't know someone was actually researching it. The
article
> is titled, "A New Split of an Old Species". It was authored by R. Warren
> McDonald and Brooks Jameson, researchers at the College of Trenton.
> Over a two year period, they studied the House Sparrow, Passer domesticus.
> The question they wanted to answer was, "Since this species has been
> separated from its original stock for over 100 years, is it possible it
has
> evolved far enough away from its parent strain to have become a separate
> species?"
> The researchers isolated pairs of these Old World finches in cages, 37
male
> American House Sparrows and 37 female European ones...and 42 pairs with
> European males and American females. Not one of the 79 pairs produced any
> offspring!! Only two pairs showed an interest in mating. (3 individuals
> died prematurely)
> They also did DNA studies to compare the genetics of the two groups. They
> found a significant difference in the DNA, enough for them to declare that
> these were now two separate species!
> Birders who travel to Europe and see the House Sparrow there can now add a
> new species to their lists!! The European bird will remain House Sparrow,
> Passer domesticus, while our American bird will tentatively become
> McDonald's Weaver-Finch, reverting to the 'finch' name, as that is more
> correct than 'sparrow', with the scientific name Passer oroarchicus.
> So, does that mean we now have on eless exotic bird out there?
>
> Remember, if you read it on the internet, it has to be true!
>
> David Trently,
> Knoxville, TN
> dtrently@xxxxxxx
> 4-1-02
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=================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER=====================

The TN-Bird Net requires you to sign your messages with
first and last name, city (town) and state abbreviation.
-----------------------------------------------------
To post to this mailing list, simply send email to:
tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
----------------------------------------------------- 
To unsubscribe, send email to:
tn-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
     Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society
          web site at http://www.tnbirds.org
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
    TN-Bird Net Owner: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN
        jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx      (423) 764-3958
=========================================================