Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!munnari.oz.au!metro!cluster!andrewt
From: andrewt@cs.su.oz (Andrew Taylor)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: trivia quiz answers
Keywords: trivia quiz
Message-ID: <1201@cluster.cs.su.oz.au>
Date: 14 Sep 90 04:50:30 GMT
References: <1197@cluster.cs.su.oz.au> <675@sun13.scri.fsu.edu>
Sender: news@cluster.cs.su.oz.au
Reply-To: andrewt@cluster.cs.su.oz (Andrew Taylor)
Organization: Basser Dept of Computer Science, University of Sydney, Australia
Lines: 18

In article <675@sun13.scri.fsu.edu> sandee@sun16.scri.fsu.edu (Daan Sandee)
writes:
> [useful info about the Atitlan Grebe]
>It was definitely flightless.

I had a vague memory of being told by someone they had seen one fly but maybe
my memory is faulty. I checked Seabirds of the World which I think said
"almost" flightless.

> ... the A.O.U. uses interbreeding as the criterium for species determination,

It seems to me this only helps in the easy case. If the ranges of two
populations overlap but they never interbreed then you call them separate
species. But what does the A.O.U do if the ranges don't overlap (common
in Australia) and surely it doesn't declare two populations to be
the same species just because interbreeding has been recorded?

Andrew