Here are some more jacanas from western Panama. These birds are not yet prepared as specimens, and before we do that, we'll be careful to document with photos the facial ornamentation. I've got the photo in better quality on my website. However, what you can see is that the right most pair of birds appear to be Wattled Jacanas, to the left appears to be a pure Northern Jacana, and then the three leftmost birds are clearly hybrids, as they have facial ornamentation scrambled between the two species.
The apparent fact that both pure species are intermixing in the hybrid zone, rather than a hybrid zone where most birds are hybirds (as occurs in many other avian hybird zone) suggests that there is a fitness consequence to hybridization. Again, my hunch is strongly that it is cultural rather than intrinsic (see my earlier post). But at least we have confirmation of the hybridization, and a field site to begin monitoring behavior. Next step is to genotype these fresh birds. A great way to start the New Year. Again, check my earlier post, and again I will be collecting your observations of Jacana populations from western Panama to make a detailed map!
0 comments:
Post a Comment