Neotropical realm

So, so we, yeah, we divide the data into these subsets, uh, and then we apply a weighting, which is proportional to how species rich that group is.

Um, so for example, if we think of terrestrial populations, the biogeographic realm that gets the highest weight is the Neotropics because it has more vertebrate species than the other realms.

And then within the Neotropics, um, I think, uh, if my memory serves me well, I think it's the, the herptiles within the, the terrestrial component of the Neotropics and so on, so that, that's how it, it is proportionally weighted.

And, and yeah, the, the reason being is because if we didn't do that, and, and the index hasn't always followed that approach, so, a- and we found that when we didn't have that weighting system, the dataset was dominated by those well-studied regions and taxa, so it was-- trends were often driven by bird and mammal trends from Europe and North America.

So it's a, a- an attempt.

Yeah.

So for example, uh, we divided up the, the population trends into different trend categories from strong increase, moderate increase to moderate decrease and strong, strong, uh, excuse me, strong decrease, um, for example.

And then within the terrestrial component, uh, we find that, uh, over half of reptiles and amphibians in the Neotropics are showing a strong or moderate, moderate decrease.

So if anyone else is interested, then please, we'll put the link in in the episode description today.

But we definitely urge people to join and support bird conservation in the Neotropics.

Yeah.

Fabulous.

DNA variants it has, and we can say whether it's one kind, whether it's a red-crowned, whether it's a lilac crown, or whether it's something in between." And that's what we found with Billy and a few other parrots, is that they were, they were truly, you know, pretty mixed hybrids, not only in their appearance, but in their DNA.

Are you able to see this in some of the parrots that are free-flying around Los Angeles now? I've done some birding in the Neotropics, and I find Amazon parrot identification, and just parrot identification in general, to be one of the most difficult aspects of birding-

Right

...

Right.

So Rhagmatorhina is this genus of antbird, and here we are talking about this super diverse, um, group of birds that are only in the Neotropics, so only, like, um, in tropical South America and Central America, and a bit of North America.

Mm-hmm.

And they are called antbirds, but this name can be a little bit misleading because first, uh, not all antbirds, actually only like probably 20% or less, 15% of antbirds are actually army ant followers.

And, um, this is a ocelot.

This is actually from Corcovado National Park, where you and I have spent some time a long time ago on our very first exploration through the Neotropics together back in the early '90s.

Uh, and ocelots are, uh, a larger bodied member of the tiger cat, uh, or of, of the clade, um, that usually the, the actual, the tiger cats is like a smaller, slightly smaller group within this clade.

Um, so I'm, I'm being a little imprecise here 'cause I feel like there's some difference in terms of how people are referring to the clade.