Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | T | The Wilson Journal of Ornithology

Additional data on the occurrence of the plantaris muscle in the Hawaiian finches (Carduelinae: Drepanidini).

Article Excerpt
Raikow (1976; 1977a,b; 1978) found great uniformity in the appendicular musculature of the Hawaiian finches, or honeycreepers, of the tribe Drepanidini, subfamily Carduelinae, which he interpreted as providing strong evidence for a monophyletic origin of the group. The only consistent variation within the tribe that appeared to have phylogenetic significance was the loss of the plantaris muscle in some species.

The plantaris is a slender muscle in the shank that originates on the medial side of the head of the tibiotarsus and gives rise to a long tendon that inserts on the tibial cartilage on the posterior portion of the intertarsal joint. Elsewhere in the Carduelinae, the plantaris is present in some genera and absent in others, and it is variable among species within Serinus (Raikow 1978). Both conditions are present in the Drepanidini and Raikow postulated that the muscle was present in the ancestral form and was lost only once within the group. Thus, the absence of the plantaris was used to identify a monophyletic subgroup within the Drepanidini.

The condition of this muscle becomes especially critical in the convoluted history, summarized by Lepson and Woodworth (2002), of the six taxa of so-called "creepers." These, at one time, had been considered to be subspecies of a single species, the Loxops maculata of Amadon (1950), whereas osteological and molecular studies support recognition of five species in three genera...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!