One thing I am very fond of are the different subspecies of a typical species. For instance, some butterflies have a different subspecies depending on their geographical location. Often Ireland will have a different subspecies compared to the rest of the British Isles, and in some cases Scotland will have as well.
Anyway, on the way back from work today I saw a starling by the edge of the path, and I decided to look it up when I got back home. To my surprise I found that the common starling (Sturnus vulgaris) has no less than twleve valid subspecies. The one I had seen on the way home was Sturnus vulgaris vulgaris which is found over most of Europe.
I noticed that there is also a unique subspecies on the Faroe Islands. The Faroe Islands have several unique subspecies, which I should talk about at more length at some point.
The Shetland Islands also have their own subspecies, Sturnus vulgaris zetlandicus. The Shetland Islands are home to several interesting species which I should mention in a post at some point, but these include the St Kilda house mouse, and the Orkney Vole.
The other nine subspecies are spread across Europe and Asia, and I don’t really have that much to say about them, but there is a reasonably informative wikipedia article for those who are interested, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Starling
See you later.
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