This rare warbler is three species in one | Smart News

Last May, Lowell Burket, an amateur ornithologist, made a major discovery. The Pennsylvania native photographed what he believed to be a very rare hybrid of three species on his property, a hypothesis that has just been confirmed by a new study in the newspaper Letters of biology.

Hybrids in the animal kingdom occur quite often, closely related species often producing intermediates, although in many cases these hybrids are sterile, such as mules. In birds, hybrids are regularly present: up to 10% of the bird species were caught swinging between them and produced unusual hybrid chicks. Two closely related New World species, the Blue-winged and Golden-winged Warbler, commonly produce hybrids known from Brewster's Warbler or Lawrence's Warbler, depending on their color.

This is what bird watcher Lowell Burket thought he saw at a watering point near his property in Roaring Spring, Pennsylvania, last May. One of the warrior's enemies seemed to be a Brewster, whom he had photographed there before, unless he looked closely at his photos, the marks were not quite accurate. One thing seemed particularly unexpected: the bird had on its breast two spots similar to those of the third common species, the brown-walled warbler. As each warbler species has a distinct song, he followed it until he heard it singing. The melody that the bird has girdled turned out to be unequivocally the warbler with sharp folds: "Pleased to meet you!

Burket sent his images, videos, and theory of all three species to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. "I tried to give the e-mail a somewhat intellectual note so that they did not think I was a crackpot," Burket said in a statement. "Having photos and video helped. In a week, researcher David Toews has arrived. We found the bird and took a blood sample and measurements. It was a very interesting and exciting morning for us. A few days later, Dave sent an SMS telling him: "You were right !!!"

Ryan F. Mandelbaum of Gizmodo reports that the bird's mitochondrial DNA showed that his mother was Vermivora kind, or golden-winged warbler, and his father was a chestnut warbler, which was part of the genus Setophaga. However, when Toews released its preliminary results online, others encouraged it to deepen its research.

"We looked at the genes that code for different colors of warbler," Toews said in a statement. "Thus, we could recreate the hybrid mother's aspect: the avian equivalent of the detective's facial composite, but generated from genes. We confirmed that the mother would have looked like a Brewster's Warbler and that the father was a Brown-sided Warbler. "

This confirmed that the new Burket's headless warbler after the observing initial discovery was an extremely rare hybrid of three species.

So, why would a bird of one species unite with another in a totally different kind? "It could have been a mistake (these things happen)," says Toews Forbes e-mail, "even though it is possible that the number of suitable partners is so small (Vermivora warblers are declining in the Appalachians) [that] she made the best of a bad situation. "

In fact, the hybridization between blue-winged and wing-winged warblers is on the rise. The number of Golden-winged Warblers has dropped 66% since the 1960s and 98% in the Appalachian region. The main culprit is the loss of habitat on its breeding grounds in North America and on its wintering grounds in Central and South America. But hybridization also results in a loss of population. Instead of giving up breeding when they can not find a partner of the same species, Golden-winged Warblers associate with Blue-winged Warblers.

"Choosing to mate with a man who is not perfect could be better than no partner at all!", Explains Toews to Forbes.

The hybrid also tells something to researchers about warblers in general. While many species eventually move away from each other to the point where they can no longer reproduce viable offspring, the evolution of the warbler appears to be different.

"This tells us that warblers in general seem to be reproductively compatible after millions of years of independent evolution," says Toews at Mandelbaum in Gizmodo. they do not cross each other because they can not, but because they choose not to do it.

The big question now is where the hybrid of the three species will look for love when they are ready to mate. Burket will continue to monitor the nearby watering point to find out.

Like this article?
S & # 39; REGISTER for our newsletter