{"id":2003,"date":"2010-05-11T16:48:33","date_gmt":"2010-05-11T22:48:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/?p=2003"},"modified":"2016-11-25T08:34:29","modified_gmt":"2016-11-25T14:34:29","slug":"whip-split","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/archives\/2003","title":{"rendered":"Whip Split!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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"Eastern" Whip-poor-will. Painting by Louis Agassiz Fuertes, from The Birds of New York (1910). Public domain.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to the grapevine, the AOU Checklist Committee<\/a> has voted to split Whip-poor-will into two species. This split has been long anticipated, as the eastern and southwestern forms breed a thousand miles apart in different habitats, show slight average differences in size and plumage, and (most importantly for this blog) sing slightly different songs.<\/p>\n

One of the primary lines of evidence cited in the split proposal was the recent publication of a molecular phylogeny of the nightjars by Han et al. (2010)<\/a>.\u00a0 Among many other species, the study looked at the two populations of Whip-poor-will (the eastern vociferus<\/em> group and the arizonae<\/em> group of the Mexican highlands), along with their close relative the Dusky Nightjar of Costa Rica (Caprimulgus saturatus<\/em>).\u00a0 The study says that the three taxa “form a group… but their inter-relationships remain unresolved. This suggests that these three taxa should be given equivalent taxonomic status.”\u00a0 In other words, they recommend either splitting the Whip-poor-will, or lumping it with Dusky Nightjar.<\/p>\n

Evidently the committee preferred the former option.\u00a0 No word yet on what they chose for names, so I’ll call them “Eastern” and “Mexican” for now.\u00a0 Here is a sampling of the songs of both forms, plus the Dusky Nightjar for comparison:<\/p>\n

\""Eastern"<\/a>
"Eastern" Whip-poor-will, Madison County, AR, 4\/26\/2009. Recording by Andrew Spencer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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