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From the Autumn 2022 concern of Residing Chook journal. Subscribe now.
In line with the American Ornithological Society, there’s one other meadowlark for birders to placed on their life lists.
In its 63rd complement to the Guidelines of North American Birds, the AOS North American Classification Committee accepted a proposal to separate out a brand new species—Sturnella lilianae—from the Japanese Meadowlark (Sturnella magna).
The hen’s official frequent identify would be the Chihuahuan Meadowlark, as a part of its vary runs inside the Chihuahuan Desert from Arizona and New Mexico down into Mexico. The proposal was submitted by Penn State PhD scholar Johanna Beam, based mostly on her undergraduate analysis on the College of Colorado that included vocal analyses and whole-genome sequencing for specimens of Western Meadowlark, Japanese Meadowlark, and the populations now break up into Chihuahuan Meadowlark.
“The genetic knowledge present that Japanese Meadowlark and this new meadowlark … are literally not one another’s closest kin,” stated U.S. Geological Survey scientist Terry Chesser, who’s the NACC chair. “Japanese and Western Meadowlarks are extra intently associated to one another than to the newly break up Chihuahuan Meadowlarks.”
Beam’s analysis additionally confirmed a species barrier among the many meadowlarks might exist because of their vocalizations.
“The vocal variations between Chihuahuan and Japanese Meadowlarks are equally as sturdy as these between Japanese and Western Meadowlarks,” stated Shawn Billerman, a science editor for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Birds of the World, who additionally sits on the NACC. “These vocal variations could also be essential in contributing to an absence of hybridization between Chihuahuan Meadowlarks and different meadowlarks.
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