Looking at Birds in a Whole New Spectrum

Posted by timothy on Wednesday August 3, 2005 @07:13AM from the ladies-gentlemen-and-distingushed-birds dept.

Shipud writes "Historically, bird species are classified using may different indicators, including plumage colors. Also, plumage variation has figured heavily in description of similarity between species. In a recent article in PNAS, Robert Bleiweiss shows that if we look in the ultra violet spectrum, birds species which seem similar, or are even considered related based on plumage colors, appear quite different. Quite a few theories regarding supposedly sympatric (sibling) species would have to be re-checked now. And yes, birds can see in the near UV spectrum, which is invisible to humans."

1 of 34 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

sympatric != sibling by vitamine73 · 2005-08-03 07:51 · Score: 2, Informative

I'm not sure this is what the poster meant, but it is implied by the text! Sympatric species (or more precisely populations...) occupy the same area at a given time. Populations that do not occupy the same area are called allopatric.

On the other hand, the notion of sibling species refers to a phylogenetic tree, they are species that who share an exclusive most recent commont ancestor. They are more often called sister species.

So, yes, this new technique could be very useful to distinguish between cryptic (that look the same in practically every way) species that live in sympatry (and allopatry for that matter), but they need not be sibling for this to matter!