SOUTH-GEORGIA PINTAIL Anas (georgica) georgica

The nominate race of Yellow-billed Pintail, but it occurs only on South Georgia. A number of plumage differences, it is darker and hardly pale under the belly, added to its smaller size have long given rise to taxonomic speculation, indeed it was once split when there were three races (the third is extinct). Whereas spinicauda is dispersive over quite long distances, the only record away from South Georgia is a vagrant on South Shetland, thus given its isolation it will probably speciate in the next million years or so.

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