andrewt@cluster.cs.su.oz.au (Andrew Taylor) (09/13/90)
My thanks to everyone who send me quiz answers. Only questions 6 & 8, both real trivia, stumped everyone. Not suprisingly, the quiz had a antipodean flavour. This probably helped Bill Venables to top score with 7.8/10. My apologies for stuffing up question 2 and the phrasing of some other others. Answers and results below. Questions, queries and quibbles welcome. Andrew ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) In many birds the male has a more colourful nuptial plumage, name a bird where the female has a more colourful nuptial plumage. Phalaropes and an assortment of other species. Usually associated with sex role-reversal. An easy question to start. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Some orders contain only flightless birds: Penguins, Ostrichs, Emus, Kiwis, Cassowarys, and Rheas. Name living flightless birds from 6 other orders. Kakapo (large New Zealand parrot) Barred-Wing Rail (Fiji) and a number of other rails Flightless Cormorant (Galapagos) Flightless Steamer Duck (Cape Horn) and also Falklands Steamer Duck Short-Winged Grebe (Peru & Bolivia) + 1 or 2? other South America Grebe. Unfortunately thats only 5, I thought the flightless Kagu of New Caledonia was a Ciconiiforme (it looks like a heron to me) but its actually a Gruiforme. There are a number of recently extinct flightless birds from other orders I couldn't find any flightless Tinamous, Guans, Megapodes or Quails which is suprising. I believe the Atitlan Grebe from Guatamala is extinct, could fly (very weakly) and may have been a subspecies of the Pied-Billed. Definite answers welcome. One text I found suggested that the Xenicus Wrens of New Zealand are flightless. A New Zealand guide not only made it clear than the 2 living species can fly but also suggested that the Stephen Island Wren, often mentioned as a flightless passerine, was also probably capable of weak flight. Evidence is slim as it was only seen alive twice before the lighthouse keeper's cat wiped it out. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Some birds such as avocets and curlews have bills which are markedly vertically assymetric. Name a bird whose bill is markedly horizontally assymetric (the left of the bill is very different to the right). Wrybill. A NZ plover whose bill curves to the right. Crossbills also have assymetric bills. (I was trying to exclude them by saying "markedly" and "very", I should have done it explicitly). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Name a bird which feeds its young largely on foliage. Hoatzin. A strange bird of the Amazon basin. A number of water birds (e.g American Coot) feed largely on aquatic vegetation. Its dubious whether this qualifies as foliage but I allowed it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Several birds are capable of preying on lambs. Name a bird which is capable of preying on full grown sheep. Kea. A NZ Parrot. It lands on the sheep and chews into it with its long bill occasionally killing them. Forshaw suggests the frequency of such attacks are is much exaggerated. Several people nominated Golden Eagle. I'm very sceptical. Golden Eagles struggle to lift more than 5kg. A full-grown sheep weighs much more than this. Does anyone know of documented instances of Golden Eagles succesfully attacking full-grown sheep or similar-sized prey. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) Name a bird which frequently lays its eggs on animal droppings. The Water Dikkop (an African thick-knee) frequently lays its eggs on the dried droppings of large mammals such as hippopotamus. I've only seen 1 reference to this, hope its accurate. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 7) Name a duck which has (naturally) occurred on all continents except Antarctica. Northern Pintail or Northern Shoveller. The keys are the ducks of Australia and of South America. Both regularly occur in Columbia. Until recently there was only one 140+ year old record of Northern Shoveller for Australia. John Gould reported seeing several but the specimen he obtained was eaten by a dog. This excuse may not work for homework but Gould's reputation was such that he was believed. A recent records has vindicated him. Pintail is a recent record for Australia. Garganey probably will be recorded for South America soon. Mallard has yet to be recorded (naturally) in Australia. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 8) Which bird was known as "King of the Gannets". A very lost Black-Browed Albatross which lived for 30+ years in a Gannet colony in the Faroe Islands last century. It was widely known and called "King of the Gannets" by the local fishermen. It was eventually shot, stuffed and put in the Copenhagen museum. (This is a trivia quiz!) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 9) Many ornithologists have species (common) named after them e.g. Audubon's Petrel. Name an ornithologist who, this century, de-named (declared not a good species) a bird which bore his name. Name the bird. Cox's Sandpiper. I believe in a recent paper he dismissed it as a hybrid though I haven't seen the paper (or the bird). I poor question 'cos its hard to check other answers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 10) Which bird has fewest rectrices (tail feathers). How many. Australian Emu-Wrens have 6. Their rectrices look like the aftershafts of emu feathers hence the name. I'm not certain 6 is the least, the only reference I have gives Anis with 8! Tropicbirds have other rectrices apart from the 2 very long ones. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Venables <wvenable@spam.ua.oz.au> 7.8 dmark@acsu.buffalo.edu (David Mark) 7 mjm@oliven.ATC.Olivetti.Com (Michael Mammoser) 5 john@jupiter.nmt.edu (John Shipman) 3.2 Jim Rising rising@zoo.toronto.edu 2.6
sandee@sun16.scri.fsu.edu (Daan Sandee) (09/13/90)
In article <1197@cluster.cs.su.oz.au> andrewt@cluster.cs.su.oz.au (Andrew Taylor) writes: >I believe the Atitlan Grebe from Guatamala is extinct, could fly (very weakly) >and may have been a subspecies of the Pied-Billed. Definite answers welcome. The Atitlan Grebe is extinct - I read an article on it, but I forget the details. It was restricted to the fairly large Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. Causes quoted for its extinction are (1) competetion for food by introduced bass, (2) habitat destruction by reed-cutting (3) hunting (although illegal) and (4) recreational development of the area resulting in more habitat destruction and disturbance. It was definitely flightless. It was regarded by some authors as conspecific with Pied-billed Grebe, but observations showed that the two species did not interbreed. At the time of its demise, it was classified by the A.O.U. as a full species. And as the A.O.U. uses interbreeding as the criterium for species determination, and as no further evidence on that can be obtained, it will no doubt remain a species. Daan Sandee sandee@sun16.scri.fsu.edu Supercomputer Computations Research Institute Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052 (904) 644-7045
wander@csa2.lbl.gov (ADRIAN WANDER) (09/14/90)
In article <1197@cluster.cs.su.oz.au>, andrewt@cluster.cs.su.oz.au (Andrew Taylor) writes...>a Ciconiiforme (it looks like a heron to me) but its actually a Gruiforme. > >5) Several birds are capable of preying on lambs. Name a bird which is > capable of preying on full grown sheep. > >Kea. A NZ Parrot. It lands on the sheep and chews into it with its long bill >occasionally killing them. Forshaw suggests the frequency of such attacks are >is much exaggerated. Several people nominated Golden Eagle. I'm very sceptical. >Golden Eagles struggle to lift more than 5kg. A full-grown sheep weighs much >more than this. Does anyone know of documented instances of Golden Eagles >succesfully attacking full-grown sheep or similar-sized prey. > I believe that two young Golden Eagles in Scotland were observed repeatedly diving at a Red Deer. The deer panicked and fled, and fell down a scree slope killing itself and hence providing a meal for the eagles. I presume the Eagles were just 'playing', so I don't know whether this counts as deliberately attacking or just oportunistic behaviour. > >9) Many ornithologists have species (common) named after them e.g. > Audubon's Petrel. Name an ornithologist who, this century, de-named > (declared not a good species) a bird which bore his name. Name the bird. > >Cox's Sandpiper. I believe in a recent paper he dismissed it as a hybrid >though I haven't seen the paper (or the bird). I poor question 'cos its >hard to check other answers. > Yes, there was an article by Cox about a year ago published in the British magazine 'Birding World', in which he took this point of view. Unfortunately, my copy is back in England so I cann't give you the reference. Adrian.
andrewt@cs.su.oz (Andrew Taylor) (09/14/90)
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
misan@ra.abo.fi (Annika Forsten DC) (09/14/90)
In article <6931@dog.ee.lbl.gov> wander@csa2.lbl.gov (ADRIAN WANDER) writes: > >9) Many ornithologists have species (common) named after them e.g. > > Audubon's Petrel. Name an ornithologist who, this century, de-named > > (declared not a good species) a bird which bore his name. Name the bird. > > > >Cox's Sandpiper. I believe in a recent paper he dismissed it as a hybrid > >though I haven't seen the paper (or the bird). I poor question 'cos its > >hard to check other answers. > > > Yes, there was an article by Cox about a year ago published in the British > magazine 'Birding World', in which he took this point of view. Unfortunately, > my copy is back in England so I cann't give you the reference. Actually, Cox has already written twice about Cox's Sandpiper in Birding World. The more recent article was this summer I think. In the previous one he only thought that Cox's might be a hybrid. In the latter article he explained why it probably was. Ie. There has been a Cooper's Sandpiper type bird caught in Australia. Of course both Cox's and Cooper's have been recorded in the USA. He felt that it is very improbable that there are two species, so very much like each other, both so rare as these seem to be, and yet real species. His conclusion was that Cox's is a hybrid between Curlew and Pectoral Sandpiper, while Cooper's is a hybrid between Curlew and Sharp-tailed. There were some more reasons for these conclusions, if anyone is intrested, let me know. Annika Forsten, Finland