New World Vultures Are Storks?

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New World Vultures Are Storks?

By Thomas Keyes
Nov. 16, 2006

I’m just on the point of discarding the scientific names of plants and animals as devoid of any value whatsoever for the practical observer. Microbiologists may be having a field day reorganizing the plant and animal kingdoms to their liking, but their findings often fly in the face of anything resembling what common-sense observation tells us. Truly enough, even the more traditional taxonomy had some rather amazing features. A simple example would be the case of Casuarina equisetifolia, an Australian tree that has been introduced in Hawai’i, Florida and even here, in Argentina. This is a tree with acicular leaves that looks for all the world like some species of conifer, but which is classified as an angiosperm, or broadleaf tree. I merely accepted this as one of the interesting oddities of nature, something to be marveled at.

But there is a new scheme for the classification of birds called the Sibley-Ahlquist System that is based upon DNA comparisons, rather than mere morphology. Morphology emphasizes appearance and anatomy, as well as genetic comparison. But whereas the traditional nomenclature seemed eminently reasonable on the basis of appearances, except for random cases like Casuarina, the new nomenclature often contradicts intuition so markedly that one is left full of skepticism about the whole project.

An example would be the case of vultures. Originally vultures fell into two families. Old world vultures were in the family Accipitridae, which also include eagles, hawks and falcons. New world vultures were in the family Cathartidae, which also include condors. Both families belonged to the order Falconiformes, which consisted of all the raptorial birds in the world. This was all very credible and convincing, making an excellent case for evolution. One could see very easily how vultures were more closely related to eagles and hawks than, say, to ducks and geese.

Here is a picture of an old world vulture, the hooded vulture, Necrosyrtes monachus:

http://www.camacdonald.com/birding/HoodedVulture(HM).jpg

Here is a picture of a new world vulture, the American black vulture, Coragyps atratus:

http://www.sbs.utexas.edu/halldw/Bio340L/Birds/BlackVulture.jpg

In viewing these two vultures, one feels he or she can pronounce definitively that they are related to each other rather closely, and perhaps only slightly more distantly to eagles and hawks.

But forget it! It’s not like that any more. The family Accipitridae has remained in the order Falconiformes, with the other raptors, but the family Cathartidae has been moved over to the order Ciconiiformes, which include storks, egrets, herons and ibises. In fact the word ‘Ciconiiformes’ derives from Latin ‘ciconia’ (‘stork’). Here is a picture of a white stork, Ciconia ciconia:

http://www.hlasek.com/foto/ciconia_ciconia_106.jpg

And here is a picture of another ciconiiform bird, the snowy egret, Egretta thula:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Egretta_thula1.jpg

How is it that although old world vultures and new world vultures resemble each other so closely, and neither resemble storks or egrets in any way, shape or form, the new world vultures are now classed as ciconiiform? If the new system is to be believed, this is a case of ‘convergent evolution’. In other words, to put it simply, a new world vulture started out as some sort of stork-like bird that gradually changed so markedly as to become indistinguishable from old world vultures.

I can’t very well say that the new scheme is flawed. What do I know? I don’t even have a microscope. But what I can say is that this makes me even more skeptical of the theory of evolution than the gaps in the fossil record did.

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About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far.

I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents.

Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com

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