New Species of diving petrel?
Angus Wilson
Abstract
Unresolved taxonomy of threatened species is problematic for conservation as the field
relies on species being distinct taxonomic units. Differences in breeding habitat and results
from a preliminary molecular analysis indicated that the New Zealand population of the
South Georgian Diving Petrel (Pelecanoides georgicus) was a distinct, yet undescribed,
species. We measured 11 biometric characters and scored eight plumage characters in 143
live birds and 64 study skins originating from most populations of P. georgicus, to assess
their taxonomic relationships. We analysed differences with principal component analyses
(PCA), factorial ANOVAs, and Kruskal-Wallis rank sum tests. Results show that individuals
from New Zealand differ significantly from P. georgicus from all other populations as following: 1) longer wings, 2) longer outer tail feathers, 3) deeper bills, 4) longer heads, 5) longer
tarsi, 6) limited collar extent, 7) greater extent of contrasting scapulars, 8) larger contrasting
markings on the secondaries, 9) paler ear coverts, 10) paler collars, and 11) paler flanks.
Furthermore, we used a species delimitation test with quantitative phenotypic criteria;
results reveal that the New Zealand population of P. georgicus indeed merits species status.
We hereby name this new species Pelecanoides whenuahouensis sp. nov. Due to severe
reductions in its range and the very low number of remaining birds (~150 individuals limited
to a single breeding colony on Codfish Island/Whenua Hou) the species warrants listing as
‘Critically Endangered’.
Joseph Morlan
http://www.worldbirdnames.org/updates/update-diary/
Treat Pelecanoides whenuahouensis sp. nov. as a subspecies of P. georgicus
Photo of this bird:
https://www.dutchbirding.nl/gallery/detail/13678?page=0#navbar-collapse
On Wed, 24 Oct 2018 18:11:40 -0400, Angus Wilson <oceanwa...@gmail.com>
wrote:
>Many may have missed this:
>
>Fischer JH, Debski I, Miskelly CM, Bost CA, Fromant A, Tennyson AJD, et al.
>(2018) Analyses of phenotypic differentiations among South Georgian Diving
>Petrel (Pelecanoides georgicus) populations reveal an undescribed and
>highly endangered species from New Zealand. PLoS ONE 13(6): e0197766.
>https://doi.org/ 10.1371/journal.pone.0197766
Joseph Morlan, Pacifica, CA
"It turns out we're very good at not seeing things" - Jack Hitt
Angus Wilson
The info is minimal but it looks to me like the IOC World Bird List editors (committee?) chose NOT to accept the Whenua Hou Diving Petrel as a full species, as argued for in the paper, but instead rank it as a new subspecies of South Georgia Diving Petrel. Treatment in IHW Alive is simply the abstract to the 2018 paper. Will be interesting to see how this shakes out over time.