Ground Jay's become ground Tit's (1 Viewer)

The two genera of Ground Jay's that live in the arid middle east and across into Asia have been recently tested by molecular biologists and surprisingly, the Ground Jay's turn out to be Ground Tit's making them no longer the smallest members of the Crow or Corvidae family, but the largest members of the Tit (Chickadee) or Paridae family!

http://worldtwitch.virtualave.net/pleske's_ground_jay.htm (you will have to copy and paste this link)

http://www.zoonomen.net/avtax/n/p.html

Ground Jays become ground Tits

Hi Steve,

Very interesting. Incredible that discoveries involving changes of such magnitude can still be made!

Guess I'll have to tear the relevant page out of 'Crows and Jays' and stick it into 'Tits, Nuthatches and Treecreepers' )

I like the idea of re-naming them 'Groundpecker'

Here's the link repaired:
http://worldtwitch.virtualave.net/pleske's_ground_jay.htm

Michael

Been searching more on this . .

It is only one of the two genera that is affected, Pseudopodoces (i.e., Hume's Ground Jay, Pseudopodoces humilis). The other genus of ground-jays, Podoces, remains in the Corvidae.

Here's a link to the abstract of the paper which announced the discovery; the full paper is published in Ibis 145: 185-202 (2003):
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1046/j.1474-919X.2003.00170.x/abs/

Michael

Thank's very much for that Michael.