Purple Heron; Garza Imperial

The Purple Heron is an old world species which breeds in Africa, central and southern Europe and southern and eastern Asia. Because the Americas split away from what was once a single large land mass millions? of years ago many species evolved separately in what became two continents. Now of course there have been many more splits but in recent times ( a few hundred years) Europe, Asia and Africa, which are still joined in places, became known as the Old World and the Americas became known as the New World. As a result we now have what are known as Old World species and new World species, where in many cases there are similarities but also differences.