European Crows (1 Viewer)

AlexC · Aug 9, 2006

Have Hooded Crow and Carrion Crow been split? I'm asking because wikipedia has them as seperate species, but my Europe book still has them as sub-species.

NickPatel92 · Aug 9, 2006

i think it says on wikipedia that in 2002 the species became it's own

Richard D · Aug 9, 2006

Most authorities now separate them

gerdwichers8 · Aug 9, 2006

I think its nonsense to regard them seperate species. Roughly the one replaces the other geographicaly. Though both didnt fully intermix yet (or ever will), the both still commonly interbreed where they do occur together.
I would plead for two different but distinct subspecies.

Capercaillie71 · Aug 9, 2006

gerdwichers8 said:
I think its nonsense to regard them seperate species. Roughly the one replaces the other geographicaly. Though both didnt fully intermix yet (or ever will), the both still commonly interbreed where they do occur together.
I would plead for two different but distinct subspecies.

I agree entirely. Where I live, the carrion crow is the dominant form. Pure hoodies are very rare (although I saw a good one today) but hybrids are quite common. More often than not the hybrids are paired up with a carrion crow. You certainly can't distinguish two species here.

Gentoo · Aug 9, 2006

I think they used biochemical techniques to split them. A similar situation exist between American and Northwestern Crows which are even more similar, at least in appearance.

Is there a difference between Hooded and Carrion voices?

gerdwichers8 · Aug 9, 2006

Thats the point, only their plumages are different but Crows are so clever, that they would devellop different strategies under different situations so the situation geografically may well cause the Crow to act differently.

Gentoo · Aug 9, 2006

gerdwichers8 said:
Thats the point, only their plumages are different but Crows are so clever, that they would devellop different strategies under different situations so the situation geografically may well cause the Crow to act differently.

I see what you're saying now. If only their plumages are different, I can't imagine why the two would have been split. Usually voice is a major factor in spliting species as calls are unique to species generally. At least with American and Northwestern there is a difference in voice despite the fact that they look almost alike.

Corvid taxonomy is one of the fluidly evolving ones and some of the splits have been interesting.

Mike Johnston · Aug 9, 2006

An outline of the thinking that went into the decision on a european level can be found here. Scroll down for the report in English.

Capercaillie71 · Aug 9, 2006

Mike Johnston said:
An outline of the thinking that went into the decision on a european level can be found here. Scroll down for the report in English.

Yes, but look at this quote at the end:

It is important to realise that reproductive isolation in crows is very weak: there are still plenty of hybrid pairs, and hybrids are nearly as fit as parents. My opinion is that, although Hooded and Carrion Crows have started on the way to reproductive isolation, they are still much closer to intraspecific divergence than interspecific divergence.

That says it all as far as I'm concerned. Did anyone really rush off to their life-list in 2002 to tick it?

European Crows (1 Viewer)

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