BRANDWIJK H VAN, NIJMAN V, PRINS TG &: ROSELAAR CS (2005) Reliability of sex determination in museum skins. LIMOSA 78 (3): 113-114.

Jukema (2005) reported that in 7% of all skins of Snow Bunting Plectrophenax nivalis in eight European museum collections the label did not show the correct sex. He attributed this high error rate to inattentive work by museum taxidermists who allegedly sexed the birds not by inspection of the gonads, but by external features, and made a plea for sexing by modern molecular techniques. In the Zoological Museum Amsterdam, one of the museums included in Jukema's study, sexing of all birds is routinely done by inspection of the gonads by a team of two observers after the skin has been removed. Of the 71 Snow Buntings sexed in this manner three (4%) show a discrepancy between external morphology and label data. We present data showing that one of eight 'incorrectly' sexed birds (according to Jukema's study) in the ZMA was in fact correctly sexed, and provide suggestions on how Snow Buntings can be sexed morphometrically. Sex determination in birds can be done by a variety of techniques, including inspection of the gonads, and analysis of morphometric, behavioural, and DNA sexing. We argue that since none of these techniques will be error-free, comparison of data obtained by various techniques will lead to an improvement of sexing in birds.

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