BirdForum is the net's largest birding community dedicated to wild birds and birding, and is absolutely FREE!

Register for an account to take part in lively discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kirk Roth" data-source="post: 1797143" data-attributes="member: 85015">Richard, Joseph, and Peter, thank you for sharing the papers.  I've always liked IOC's stated rationale, and I must admit that I am fairly unfamiliar with BOU policies, but from the paper here, it seems similar.  I shouldn't have implied that NOBODY had proposed good, holistic species principals (I didn't mean to, anyway), but sometimes I question their implementation.The scrub jay example that I mentioned before is a place where I think the mark may have been missed.  Rosy Finches have already been mentioned.  I also have a hard time understanding Cabot's Tern as a species, just because the Elegant Tern is nested within or Sandwich Tern populations.  But perhaps I'm missing something - its easy for someone like me to be critical from the "outside," without sitting through long taxonomic committee discussions!On the topic of "molt timing speciation," a big candidate would be Eastern vs. Western Painted Buntings.</blockquote>