Friday, January 12, 2007

Thanks, Dad

From the Times:

A duck that was feared to be extinct has been found alive and well in the wild after zoologists spent 18 years looking for it in the wrong sort of habitat. ...

Glyn Young, of the Durrell trust, has been searching for the duck, Aythya innotata, since 1989. He said: “The finding is extremely exciting. It was incredible. Some of the chicks could only just have hatched.”

Dr Young, who named his eldest daughter, Aythya, after the duck, added:...

It could've been worse; her father might have been a fan of the harlequin duck, otherwise known as histrionicus histrionicus. (Father to crying child: "Calm down, Histrionicus, calm down.")

(For all your common and taxonomic duck name needs, go here, type in "duck" and search for "common names")

1 comment:

Focko Smitherman said...

That story reminds me of the sighting of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker a few years ago in Arkansas. The last time one had been seen in the U.S. was 1944.

The ITIS link is cool too.