[image] Biggest peeve among naturalist Also I thought about another one - calling birds and mammals leucistic while there’s no such genetical condition for the groups. And also denying that they’re albino only because they don’t have pink eyes. Ok, that I have a problem with because there is a…

The link has it, and as I remember your link was discussed in group, I know that Audubon society uses the term, though it’s still wrong, at least in a scientific, genetical way. I can check for more links when I’ll get back home.

I only saw your link to facebook after my reply. I would still appreciate if you provide some more info about this matter. Thank you.

https://sciencemadefun.net/blog/leucism-vs-albinism/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leucism https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/blogs/whats-the-difference-between-albino-and-leucistic https://feederwatch.org/color_variant/albinism-and-leucism/ http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory/pastsearches…

“Albinistic birds have pink eyes because without melanin in the body, the only color in the eyes comes from the blood vessels behind the eyes.” Do you realise how wrong this is?

Talking scientifically leucism means certain conditions in reptilians, like well known white crocodilians, in the meantime the term is widely used for anything that is not albino in vertebrates (though it also leads to confusion as many albino looks ok to call leucistis for ordinary person). If we w…

“A genetically complete albino could still have highly colored feathers if a pigment other than melanin were present… leucism is caused not by a lack of pigment, but by a reduced deposition of pigment in the feathers.” – Rosenberg 2006 That’s why you have yellowish (xanothophyll) albinos and other …

Read my last comment, leucism is a made-up term, like polyphyletic group, but for colour abberations, that’s why it should be avoided, as it leads to confusing, making ppl think it’s all the same.

@marina_gorbunova & @birdwhisperer : I moved the discussion that arose from this peeve to its own topic. Enjoy. :) (recommented to retain the original order)

Yeah, sorry, I saw your post only after I sent the comment.

There’s another example, term xanthrochromism, it describes the phenology of the bird, but not what causes it, so there’re two views - first it’s easier to use the term to describe the phenology, or the second, scientific one, to call each condition the name it has or the name of the gene it involve…

Albinism and leucism

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Albinism and leucism

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