Talk:Larus

Commons
I have been through all the species articles for this genus and all images are currently at Commons. Richard001 (talk) 06:47, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Norway or Poland
Second picture says "in Poland" but the file descripription i s"photographed in Norway". Well?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.163.254.157 (talk) 18:06, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Dealt with. • Rabo³  • 04:40, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Interbreeding
The report says 'However, the Lesser Black-backed Gulls and Herring Gull are sufficiently different that they cannot interbreed; thus the group of gulls forms a continuum except in Europe where the two lineages meet.'

This presumably is based in part on what Richard Dawkins wrote in A Devils Chaplain 'the Herring Gull and the Lesser Black-backed Gull never interbreed' and thus they cannot interbreed and thus they are sterile and thus this is evidence of speciation and thus sterility as a result of evolution. How false this is and another example of the scientific bias from our famed science community infatuated with evolution 'fact'.

Hopefully these sites which i just picked at random will help the reader see the light here ...

http://sites.google.com/site/appledorelbbg/ http://gullsofappledore.wordpress.com/ http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119720150/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0 http://machineslikeus.com/articles/SexualSelection.html http://fdocc.blogspot.com/2005/10/gull-variation.html http://darrennaish.blogspot.com/2006/02/no-no-no-no-no-herring-gull-is-not.html

But i see one of these is already referenced in your next comment - 'However, a recent genetic study has shown that this example is far more complicated than presented here, and probably does not constitute a true ring species (Liebers et al., 2004).'

How fortunate it is that at least one evolutionist is on the ball to try and cover his colleagues tracks a little.

But the damage is already done and it is further evidence wiki is far too reliant on such evolutionary bias.

Matt Cauthon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.14.49.156 (talk) 21:30, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Quirk of terminology
For me as a linguist it was fascinating to read this page and discover how closely these (sub?)speces are related, because I am aware of a quirk in the terminology. The German name for the lesser black-backed gull is Heringsmöwe, which literally means "herring gull". It's a classic false friend for language learners. Understanding that the taxonomy of these birds is in any case interwoven and complicated makes it a lot easier to understand how this could have come about. I will leave it to those of you who created this page to decide if that tit-bit belongs in the article. Doric Loon (talk) 12:58, 2 June 2023 (UTC)


 * A year ago I realise, but gull names between Latin, English, and other European languages are rife with false friends! There's lots of them . . . MPF (talk) 00:21, 14 July 2024 (UTC)