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From: bob@delphi.uchicago.edu (Robert S. Lewis, Jr.)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: The buzzards of Hinkley
Message-ID: <1990Dec12.164247.27830@midway.uchicago.edu>
Date: 12 Dec 90 16:42:47 GMT
References: <1990Dec9.010930.15344@redpoll.neoucom.edu> <2510@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> <1990Dec10.170017.26347@midway.uchicago.edu> <10775@helios.TAMU.EDU>
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Reply-To: bob@delphi.UUCP (Robert S. Lewis, Jr.)
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In article <10775@helios.TAMU.EDU> e343gv@tamuts.tamu.edu (Gary Varner) writes:

>let me 
>emphasize that the vultures and condors _are_ raptors.  "Raptor" is 
>actually a functional rather than a phylogenetic category.  The owls
>on the one hand and the hawk and falcon families (which includes 
>everything from eagles and buteos to kites and kestrels, _as_well_as_
>vultures_and_condors_) are now thought to be examples of convergent 
>evolution:  



Just as a sidelight:  I've heard that some ornithologists now consider
the New World Vultures to be related more closely to storks than to
the other falconiform species.