Hanuman plover re established as a species after 86 years, scientists say. The Hanuman plover, native to India and Sri Lanka, has been re-established as a species 86 years after being relegated to a subspecies, a move scientists hope will focus conservation attention on threatened habitats.
The small whitish robin-sized bird, named after the Hindu god Hanuman, was conflated with the Kentish plover in the 1930s because the two species were considered the same. However, the advent of DNA sequencing has allowed scientists to confirm the subtle differences between groups that are enough to separate them.
Scientists hope that by resurrecting the species, conservation funds will be used to protect endangered wetlands in the area. These habitats are highly biodiverse and provide important wintering grounds for migratory birds, they said.
A species consists of a population that cannot interbreed successfully with another species. A subspecies consists of a group within a species that is usually geographically isolated from other subspecies.
Hanuman plover is endangered at this point
“While we don’t know if the Hanuman plover is endangered at this point, it lives in an area that has one of the highest human population densities on the planet,” said Alex Bond, who co-authored the study and is the lead author of the study. curator at the Natural History Museum in Great Britain.
“Having a name associated with these birds means that it is easier for politicians and politicians to notice these plovers and take the necessary steps to help them,” Bond said in a statement.
Plovers are a family of shorebirds that live all over the world, except at the poles themselves. They feed on invertebrates, but otherwise have a number of different habitats and lifestyles.
To analyze whether the Hanuman plover, scientifically named Charadrius seebohmi, is more than a subspecies, the researchers took measurements and samples from wild birds as well as specimens held in museums around the world.
They found that these birds tend to have smaller wings, tails and beaks than the Kentish plover, as well as other plumages. While the Kentish plover tends to have black legs in both sexes, the Hanuman’s plover has dark gray legs, while males have a black forehead stripe, according to scientists.
Evidence hanuman birds were two different species found in their genetic
Observations of wild birds have also shown that the Hanuman plover molts much earlier in the year and molts different feathers than their relative before the breeding season. Even stronger evidence that these birds were two different species was found in their genetics, which indicated that they diverged about 1.2 million years ago.
At the time, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were falling, causing changes in the timing of the ice ages.
The researchers suggest that this event, known as the Mid-Pleistocene transition, may have been responsible for the two species diverging due to the environmental effects it caused, such as changes in sea level.
Together, the evidence was enough for the team to say the species should be resurrected, more than a century ago, these birds were considered their own species, so that doesn’t mean these plovers have changed. Instead, it’s our understanding of what a species is, and how much variation is appropriate to distinguish one, that’s different,” Bond added.
Read Now:Â 7 worst years for melting polar ice caps and ice loss occurred during the last decade
