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="Zheljko" data-source="post: 3254143" data-attributes="member: 9553">I think of gull taxa as a counterpart of human peoples, and of constantly shifting species designations as a counterpart of creating artificial ethnic groups ("Hispanic non-white" vs. "Hispanic white" vs. "white non-Hispanic" etc.). Scientists mix and match these gull groups all the time and we do what we can to be able to trace our notebook records to one of the recognizable units, so when a form moves from species michahelis to species cachinans we do not have to use "Larus sp."Frankly all large gulls seem like one big species to me, and they intergrade, and I am not sure the birds themselves would be so excellent in telling whether another gull was the same species and potential breeding partner if they didn't happen to spend time with their schoolmates (creche-mates) from fledging to the time when they should form a family. Fortunately the forms in the same area seem to have different starting dates for breeding so that separates them.</blockquote>