Monday, December 13, will be the next monthly meeting of the Cayuga Bird Club at 7:30 pm. Register in advance for the Zoom meeting here: https://tinyurl.com/cbc202112.
Speaker: Jay Falk, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington Title: Females that look like males: Unraveling a hummingbird mystery Hummingbirds are famous for their brilliant coloration. It is no wonder that cultures throughout history have considered them to embody a magical or even godly essence, and modern taxonomists couldn't help but name them after the most beautiful gems and jewels. But when we take a closer look, we see that not all hummingbirds are so boldly showy, and that colorfulness varies between species, subspecies, sex, and even individuals. Conventional scientific wisdom dictates that we expect to see more coloration in males than females. However, in many species where it was previously thought that males are more colorful than females, recent work has found that females, in fact, vary widely from drab to entirely male-like in ornamentation. In his talk, Jay Falk will be discussing one such hummingbird, the White-necked Jacobin (Florisuga mellivora), where it was found that 20% of adult females are indistinguishable from males, while the rest look completely different. Even more surprisingly, it was found that juveniles of this species all look like adult males, the complete opposite of what is found in most birds. He will discuss his team's process for studying these hummingbirds in the Panamanian tropics, testing multiple hypotheses, and gradually unraveling the mystery of these birds. Finally, their findings from White-necked Jacobins will be framed into the broader context of evolutionary theory, showing how this fascinating species can help illuminate how color evolves in birds and beyond. Dr. Jay Jinsing Falk grew up in Austin, Texas where some of his earliest memories involve watching grackles, pigeons, and ducks with his grandparents at Zilker Park. In college, he majored in Ecology and Evolution at the University of Texas and found an interest in animal behavior while studying flour beetles and local crickets. As a doctoral student, Jay began studying hummingbirds and color evolution at Cornell University, advised by Mike Webster at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and co-advised by Dustin Rubenstein at Columbia University. He is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle where he continues to study the evolution and behavior of hummingbirds with Alejandro Rico-Guevara. Cayuga Bird Club meetings start at 7:30pm on the second Monday of each month, September through June, and are open to the public. Each virtual meeting will begin with the speaker's presentation, followed by club business. ____________________________________________________________ Choose to be safer online. Opt-in to Cyber Safety with NortonLifeLock. Plans starting as low as $6.95 per month.* https://store.netzero.net/account/showService.do?serviceId=nz-nLifeLock&utm_source=mktg&utm_medium=taglines&utm_campaign=nzlifelk_launch&utm_content=tag695&promoCode=A34454 -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
