Subject: 'Ornithological Order'
Date: Mar 23 06:40:35 2004
From: Lynn Schulz - linusq at worldnet.att.net


Linda and Tweeters:
>From "The Everything Bird Book" by Tershia d'Elgin, here is a
simple-to understand explanation of Ornithological Order which is
really Taxonomic Order. I have paraphrased it.
Keeping track of over a million animal species and about half as many
plant species is a persisting organizational challenge. TAXONOMY is
the established organizational method of classifying plants and
animals. The system derives from 18th century work of Carolus
Linnaeus. Following are the taxonomic divisions: Kingdom, Phylum,
Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. [A way to remember this: King
Phillip Came Out For Good S*x or for a family audience For Green
Stamps.] Gee, I hope this msg gets past the spam filters...
Then the birds are ranked in Phylogenetic order. PHYLOGENY classifies
living creatures according their emergence, from prehistory to most
recent. The order Gaviiformes (the loon family) represents the most
ancient species still living. [This has recently been changed but you
are safe to continue this classification for awhile because the field
guides still list them this way.] The order Passeriformes which are
the songbirds or perching birds are the most recent. The Passerines
are 60% of all bird species, and if you look in your field guide, they
are about half the book. They are all the birds past the woodpeckers.
Almost all checklists are in ornithological order, although I have
seen a few pretty old ones that were in alphabetical order. Taxonomic
order is the scientific method.
Yours, Carol Schulz
DesMoines, WA
mailto:linusq at att.net
----- Original Message -----
From: "Linda B" <llbart at scn.org>
To: "Tweeters" <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Monday, March 22, 2004 6:35 PM
Subject: 'Ornithological Order'


| Tweeters--I am leading a monthly bird walk at Lake Wilderness
Arboretum and
| compiling a list of the species we see to eventually make into a
bird check
| list for arboretum visitors. I've given the newsletter editor the
list to
| date (43 species) in ornithological order, and she's thinking about
changing
| the list into alphabetical order. I told her the final check list
will be
| in ornithological order, and she's asked me to write something for
the
| newsletter explaining ornithological order--something that would be
easily
| understood by the novice. And I realize that I really don't know
why this
| order is used myself! Does anyone have a good explanation?
|
| Thanks!
|
| Linda Bartlett
| Kent, WA
|