From the Autumn 2022 concern of Dwelling Chicken journal. Subscribe now.
In line with the American Ornithological Society, there’s one other meadowlark for birders to placed on their life lists.
In its 63rd complement to the Guidelines of North American Birds, the AOS North American Classification Committee accepted a proposal to separate out a brand new species—Sturnella lilianae—from the Jap Meadowlark (Sturnella magna).
The chicken’s official widespread title would be the Chihuahuan Meadowlark, as a part of its vary runs inside the Chihuahuan Desert from Arizona and New Mexico down into Mexico. The proposal was submitted by Penn State PhD pupil Johanna Beam, primarily based on her undergraduate analysis on the College of Colorado that included vocal analyses and whole-genome sequencing for specimens of Western Meadowlark, Jap Meadowlark, and the populations now cut up into Chihuahuan Meadowlark.
“The genetic information present that Jap Meadowlark and this new meadowlark … are literally not one another’s closest relations,” mentioned U.S. Geological Survey scientist Terry Chesser, who’s the NACC chair. “Jap and Western Meadowlarks are extra intently associated to one another than to the newly cut up Chihuahuan Meadowlarks.”
Beam’s analysis additionally confirmed a species barrier among the many meadowlarks might exist on account of their vocalizations.
“The vocal variations between Chihuahuan and Jap Meadowlarks are equally as robust as these between Jap and Western Meadowlarks,” mentioned Shawn Billerman, a science editor for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Birds of the World, who additionally sits on the NACC. “These vocal variations could also be vital in contributing to an absence of hybridization between Chihuahuan Meadowlarks and different meadowlarks.