YUCATAN QUAIL

Out in the burnt scrub, after the shower had passed I heard a familiarish bird-warning call. I walked toward it and up flushed about a dozen Yucatan Quail. From the brief glimpse I had of them they could as well have been the US's Bobwhite.

In fact, authorities disagree as to whether what I saw was a species endemic only to the Yucatan and part of Belize, and known technically as COLINUS NIGROGULARIS, or whether the birds are merely a subspecies of North America's Northern Bobwhite, COLINUS VIRGINIANUS. Northern bobwhites extend from the US into southern Mexico, to the Guatemalan border, and in Mexico four subspecies of them are recognized.

The Yucatan Quail is unlike all Northern Bobwhite subspecies in that it possesses a conspicuously black-and-white-spotted breast. "Lumpers" say that that's not enough difference to declare a new species, but "splitters" say Yucatan Quails are clearly distinct species.