Tetrapod Zoology

In the previous article I spoke about some of the animals I saw both in the more urban areas, and out in the countryside. If you go to north Africa (and if you're interested in ornithology), you hope to see larks. Larks (alaudids) do well in the deserts and semi-deserts of the region, and there are lots of species to see, some of which are very, very neat. If you think not, you're dead inside. Greater hoopoe lark Alaemon alaudipes, Dupont's lark Chersophilus duponti, Black-crowned finch lark Eremopterix nigriceps, Thick-billed lark Rhamphocoris clotbey... these birds are all amazing. Did I see any of them? In Morocco last year, I was lucky enough to see hoopoe larks on several occasions; also Desert lark Ammomanes deserti and Crested larks Galerida cristata. This time round, things weren't so lark-heavy; all I saw were Crested larks, though they were seen frequently at many sites, with my first sighting being near the Wadi Ghan dam (south of Tripoli).

Crested larks inspire strong feelings about the status of those entities termed subspecies

Compared to the Moroccan birds, the Libyan ones were paler, so it's likely that they represented a different subspecies [the bird shown here is from Haryana, India, and thus very different from Libyan crested larks. Photo by J. M. Garg, from wikipedia]. An insane 60 crested lark subspecies have been named of which 34-37 are accepted as distinguishable; this is perhaps not surprising for a bird that ranges from Somalia to Senegal, and from Portugal to Denmark and then east to Korea. The features that vary include body size, bill length, the amount of streaking on the breast, and how brown or grey the animals are. Everyone seems to agree that a thorough revision of these innumerable forms is needed. They vary so much you might wonder whether they all represent the same species. At least there are indications from genetics that at least some of the subspecies are more closely related to one another than to other Galerida larks (like the Thekla lark G. theklae), even though some of those subspecies morphologically resemble Thekla larks more than other Crested larks (Guillaumet et al. 2005).

You'll recall here the controversy about the monophyly of species and the status of subspecies: some people might like it if subspecies were ignored and things were kept as simple as possible, but the fact is that many 'subspecies' are as distinct as are many traditionally recognised 'species', and/or represent deep divergences within the taxon in question and really do represent distinct and morphologically diagnostic lineages (some of those Crested lark subspecies, for example, diverged from one other more than a million years ago, apparently). If you adopt a 'diagnostic species concept', the horrible conclusion is that there might be twice as many extant bird species as is generally thought.

On the subject of passerines, Barn swallows Hirundo rustica were also present at the dam: what were they doing in Libya during October? I thought they would have been well south of the region by this time, but there they were.

Thoughts on the House bunting complex

At Gharyan in the Nafusa Mountains we visited another old hilltop settlement. Finally, some good views of House buntings... the distinct reddish-bodied, bluish-headed north African birds conventionally regarded as the Emberiza striolata subspecies E. s. saharica. Again we come back to the subspecies vs species issue, as this taxon is so distinct relative to the nominate subspecies and some highly similar forms (these inhabit the Middle East and also occurs eastwards across Asia) that the two should very probably be regarded as distinct species (a view that differs substantially from that put forward in Cramp and Perrins's Birds of the Western Palearctic!). 'E. s. saharica' occurs in north-western Africa (from western Libya to Morocco) and is absent everywhere further east. The idea that saharica-type buntings and striolata-like buntings should be regarded as separate species was promoted by (among others) Mullarney et al. (1999) and has since been adopted more widely (Collinson 2006, Kirwan & Shirihai 2007) [one of my terrible photos is shown here; the better one below is by Neill Hunt and is from here on John Dempsey's excellent BirdBlog].

I think it's likely to be correct: the two are easily more different than are other 'established' species, like the annoyingly similar Ortolan E. hortulana, Cretzschmar's bunting C. caesia and Grey-headed bunting E. buchanani, and Kirwan & Shirihai (2007) made a very strong case for the distinction of the two. With the House bunting now regarded as a distinct species, striolata-like buntings are now known as Striolated buntings. Confusing matters somewhat is a Striolated bunting population from Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya and the adjacent countries (E. s. saturiator*) that has House bunting-like features and has been regarded in the past as an intermediate between striolata and saharica. Kirwan & Shirihai (2007) argued, however, that it's evidently a form of Striolated bunting, and that its House bunting-like features evidence recent hybridisation. Testing and more work is required!

* E. s. jebbelmarae looks likely to be synonymous with, or very close to, this form.

I also got my closest view yet of a Black wheatear Oenanthe leucura (you'll recall from the previous article that members of this species were seen on numerous occasions during the trip)... sadly, it was dead, and not exactly in a state amenable to collection (read: maggots).

Finally (for animals seen in the field), in the Jabal Nafusah region near Nalut (the same site where I had my second look at the mysterious small mammals identified as rock hyraxes [with a question mark]) I accidentally flushed a small group of Alectoris partridges. So far as I could tell they didn't have any bold black or white markings on the face, and for this reason I concluded at the time that they were Barbary partridges A. barbara (a species I've previously seen in Morocco). Range maps confirm this, as the Barbary is apparently the only partridge that occurs in Libya. I also found a snake skin: it was too fragmentary to allow an identification, even to 'family' level.

Libya, land of garbage and refuse

I have one final observation on the wild spaces of Libya: like so many places in the developing world, the country is swamped with garbage. You can be on some remote hillside with a spectacular view and an archaeological ruin, and yet surrounding you on all sides are the gutted shells of old cars and vast seas of plastic shit. Near the towns, the roadsides are used as if they were strip-shaped landfill sites; the quantity of rubbish was just staggering. Without doubt, the country has a serious problem - my photos here (taken at various places) should give you some idea of how bad things are.

Fortunately, this isn't the case absolutely everywhere, and we were told that efforts to employ the unemployed and get them to help tidy the country up are underway. But it's difficult to see if this is even possible and I am not optimistic. Remember that litter is not purely cosmetic: it's a true pollutant that poisons the land, denudes an area of living things, and has knock-on effects throughout food-chains and ecosystems.

More Libyan musings yet to come: particularly on Tripoli Zoo! And all will become clear on the mural shown at the very top of the article. For previous articles on north African wildlife see...

• To the Sahara in quest of dinosaurs (living and extinct)
• Over the Atlas Mountains and to the land of rebbachisaurs, agamas and fennec foxes
• From Morocco, with larks, babblers, gazelles, owls and GIANT DINOSAUR BONES
• The Tet Zoo tour of Libya (part I)

And for articles on plastic pollution and the smothering of the planet in human refuse see...

• Planet Earth is rubbish
• Why I hate plastic tampon applicators
• Another effort to help rid a beach of plastic waste

Refs - -

Collinson, M. 2006. Splitting headaches? Recent taxonomic changes affecting the British and Western Palearctic lists. British Birds 99, 306-323.

Guillaumet, A., Crochet, P.-A. Godelle, B. 2005. Phenotypic variation in Galerida larks in Morocco: the role of history and natural selection. Molecular Ecology 14, 3809-3821.

Kirwan, G. M. & Shirihai, H. 2007. Species limits in the House Bunting complex. Dutch Birding 29, 1-19.

Mullarney, K., Svensson, L., Zetterström, D. & Grant, P. J. 1999. Bird Guide. HarperCollins, London.