Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 20:45:47 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Bill Ellis Subject: Re: A little question - Part II In-Reply-To: <20031120190847.39295.qmail@web12401.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Marcus: Allow me to make some suggestions on sources of information on bird taxonomy. Many monographs on one or a few bird families (such as those published by Yale, or Princeton, or Oxford) have excellent introductory sections covering the state of current knowledge and opinion on the taxonomy of the group of birds covered in the book. Handbook of the Birds of the World (many volumes, expensive but excellent) analyzes and summarizes the best information on taxonomy, presenting differing opinions, but drawing their own conclusions. This site by Don Roberson on Bird Families follows Handbook of the Birds of the World closely, with a few of his own revisions based on his worldwide birding experience. It is a good starting place for learning about bird relationships, that you can trust to be close to the current state of scientific opinion: http://montereybay.com/creagrus/list.html In the end, you have to decide which expert you believe on any given question in bird taxonomy. I find that there is safety in numbers - if multiple authors agree, and they have solid facts and outnumber the dissenters, believe them. I accept, however, that many questions in avian taxonomy are still unresolved. On grebes, believe Bob Ringler and Norm Saunders - grebes are in order Podicipediformes. Believe Don Roberson and the Handbook for the grebe family - Podicipedidae (the grebe order has only one family within it). The American Ornithological Union (AOU Check-List, 7th edition) also agrees. Bill Ellis -----Original Message----- From: Marcus James Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2003 2:09 PM I was just at the Patuxent Wildlife Research site, looking up the Pied-billed Grebe. When I looked up it's Taxonomy, it said the grebe is in the order Ciconiformes. ... ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================