Subject: Re: CALBIRD Bristle-thighed Curlew structure From: Alvaro Jaramillo Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 20:33:26 -0700 Birders, Independently from Kimball I also measured some curlews today. I was doing some work at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology in Berkeley and took a bit of time off to measure a few curlew bills. These are the data I came up with: number species sex culmen depth width 95095 BTCU F 105.3 9.98 7.45 100606 BTCU F 106.39 9.31 9.25 45128 BTCU F 90.15 8.24 7.04 45129 BTCU F 77.25 6.57 5.23 79436 BTCU M 90.22 9.82 7.49 12501 BTCU M 86.98 7.49 5.38 45127 BTCU M 86.8 8.06 5.92 12500 BTCU U 97.38 7.92 5.97 22321 WHIM F 97.87 7.11 6.58 22322 WHIM F 95.36 8.3 7.58 173820 WHIM F 86.69 7.43 7.12 87889 WHIM F 92.64 9.28 8.14 22323 WHIM M 87.95 7.27 6.28 22324 WHIM M 85.08 7 6.52 22326 WHIM M 83.51 6.72 6.38 22327 WHIM M 80.15 6.74 6.47 The number refers to the museum number. Note that the shortest billed female was a juvenile and #45128 may have also been less than a year old but I couldn't confirm this looking at the skin. Looking at Whimbrels it was clear that juveniles had much shorter bills than adults, so keep that in mind. If the short billed juvenile female is kept out of the analysis the conclusions do not change, the means just shift about a bit. These are the means (averages) for the measurements. MEANS SEX culmen depth width BTCU F 94.7725 8.525 7.2425 BTCU M 88 8.456666667 6.263333333 WHIM F 93.14 8.03 7.355 WHIM M 84.1725 6.9325 6.4125 In this case, the Bristle-thighed Curlew came out as the longer billed species, for both sexes. Bill depth at the anterior end of the 'nostril' averaged greater for the Bristle-thighed Curlew. For you statistics buffs, the bill depth difference in males was the only statistically significant (t-test at alpha = 0.05) comparison. Bill widths are roughly the same, but note that in this sample of birds the Bristle-thighed Curlew is the thinner billed bird. morphometrically yours, Alvaro Alvaro Jaramillo "It was almost a pity, to see the sun Half Moon Bay, shining constantly over so useless a country" California Darwin, regarding the Atacama desert. alvaro@sirius.com