August 8, 2019
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS SPECIES:
Researchers in Wisconsin are astonished to find loons raising a duckling as their own (The Week, 8/08/19)
When Dr. Walter Piper saw a pair of loons taking care of an orphaned duckling, he was "flabbergasted."Piper runs The Loon Project, which studies the species in northern Wisconsin. He's been researching loons for nearly three decades, and told Good Morning America that mallards and loons are "usually enemies," and a loon couple raising a duckling has "never been reported before."
What Swims Like a Duck and Quacks Like a Duck Could Be a Hybrid of Two Duck Species (Joanna Klein, Sept. 11, 2017, NY Times)
A duck is a duck, right? Well, yes, but when one duck mates with a duck of another species, there's the risk that one of the original species could cease to exist. And then that duck is a duck no more.But who cares? A new, hybrid duck will emerge, and that duck is a duck, right? Maybe over geological time that would be true. But in a natural world affected by human activity, ecologists and conservationists worry that hybridization can upset ecological balances and undermine the survival of species involved in such a blend. Although not a problem yet, a study published Thursday in The Condor: Ornithological Applications suggests the riddling possibility that two duck species forming a hybrid species could one day leave us with less diversity among North American ducks.This study is the first to assess the rate at which mallard and Mottled Ducks are combining into hybrids in the western Gulf of Mexico region of the United States.
Posted by Orrin Judd at August 8, 2019 12:00 AM