FfFfFfFF 58,120 Posted April 1, 2021 Share Posted April 1, 2021 In Iberá National Park in Argentina, two wren-size, nearly identical species of bird live side by side, spending their days foraging for the same kinds of seeds and nesting in the same kinds of places. These species can breed together successfully but normally don’t—for seemingly trivial reasons, evolutionary biologists have just discovered. Differences in belly color and song appear to be enough to keep the birds from mating with one another, generation after generation. Usually, new species form because some members of a population become isolated, say by a river or a mountain range. But sometimes—as may be the case with these two southern capuchino seedeaters—no such physical barrier seems to have separated the two species, suggesting that side-by-side or “sympatric” speciation has occurred instead. To see whether the two species really didn’t mate with each other in the wild, Turbek and her colleagues banded 126 birds of both species, tracked the activities of the adults and 80 of the young produced, and sampled the DNA from each. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/03/tiny-differences-plumage-and-song-have-split-two-nearly-identical-birds-different Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bionic 50,111 Posted April 1, 2021 Share Posted April 1, 2021 I love your nature threads. How crazy is DNA? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
OysterBaby 450 Posted April 1, 2021 Share Posted April 1, 2021 So cool! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricksies 527 Posted April 1, 2021 Share Posted April 1, 2021 Racist birds, they should be cancelled. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magneto 13,546 Posted April 1, 2021 Share Posted April 1, 2021 Meanwhile on Wrendr: It's just a preference Free my mind Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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