Crane in 1982: Tex and Archibald
[156] [more-crane-56] In 1982, the field log for Crane is headed “Tex and Archibald.” The figure kept beside that heading is 1. It is a count or a date from the work, not a rank of the species’ worth. A zoo birthday card does not replace the log. A long trachea coiled in the sternum gives the unison call its carry. The bill probes wetlands; the inner wing is built for a slow display stroke.
Tall wetland dancers whose red-crowned East Asian population is the atlas type and a conservation bottleneck. Why does this atlas use the red-crowned crane? The taxonomy hero is Grus japonensis -- Kushiro, the Korean DMZ and Izumi. Other Grus species appear as comparison, not as the page type.
How close did whooping cranes come to zero? The Aransas-Wood Buffalo flock was about 21 birds in 1941. That nadir still defines US recovery graphs. What did George Archibald do at ICF? He courtship-danced with a human-imprinted whooping crane named Tex so she would ovulate -- a 1980s method story, not a field census.
A large share of the migratory island population winters on one Kyushu floodplain. Influenza years there are species-level events. Do cranes mate with a lifelong dance? Pairs are typically socially monogamous. The dance is pair-bond and territorial display, not a fairy-tale wedding.
Keep 1982, “Tex and Archibald,” and 1 together or the note on Crane stops being that year’s record.1982
Figures to keep
- Year of the note
- 1982
- Figure to keep
- 1
- Species
- Crane
- Line in the log
- Tex and Archibald
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