Robert W. Butler
Pacific WildLife Foundation, PO Box 1-12, 850 Barnet Highway, Port Moody, B.C. Canada; email: Contact@robbutler.ca
Abstract: A recent genomic study by Slager et al. (2020) suggested that the Northwestern Crow (Corvus caurinus) and the American Crow (C. brachyrhynchos) hybridized along a >1400 km wide zone between northwest Washington and the north coast of British Columbia. A reanalysis of those data suggests hybridization is confined to coastal valleys inhabited by humans and isolated from much of the British Columbia coast by uninhabited fjords and where genetics of crows has yet to be described. Based on these results, it is recommended that Corvus caurinus be retained as a full species.
Key words: Corvus caurinus, Corvus brachyrhynchos, speciation, subspecies, hybrids
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