birding-aus

Last (?) thoughts on Nomenclature and Taxonomy

To: "birding-aus" <>
Subject: Last (?) thoughts on Nomenclature and Taxonomy
From: "Trevor Ford" <>
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 01:09:37 +1000
G'day,

Many thanks for the various emails I've received on the subject of
hyphenisation and capitalisation.  Philip Veerman's email to the list summed
up nicely the situation - and I now understand the ground rules.
Unfortunately I don't have access to Emu or Wingspan to refer to the
articles suggested by Bob Forsyth.  I have, however, downloaded the latest
draft list from Birds Australia dated September 2003 (although this only
seems to differ from the February list in that it addresses the perceived
inclusion of a trinomial).  A few comments, in no particular order (and
again please send any replies that are not to the list to
:

1.  The BA list refers to Cuckoo-Shrike.  Presumably this is a mistake
unless they are now considered to be shrikes.

2.  I was mistaken in hyphenating Night-Heron.  It is, in fact, Night Heron.

3.  The September 2003 BA list references Clements 1991, even though the
taxonomy presented is not used.  But since then Clements has published many
updates, resulting in a new publication in 2000, which in turn has had many
updates.  Not used.

4.  I can understand why Giant-Petrel (or Giant Petrel) should be so named,
but Storm-Petrel and Diving-Petrel, apart from being very different, belong
in their own family groups and are not true petrels.  So doesn't this break
the rules?

5.  I am also curious about robins.  There is a family of 'Australasian
Robins' which contains a number of species called flycatchers, robins,
ground robins, scrub robins, etc.  Surely the ground robins and scrub robins
are therefore robins (Clements identifies them as 'Ground-Robin' and
'Scrub-Robin') just as much as the other robins?  (And none of them are
really robins - look at your Christmas cards!)

I think I'll leave it there and reluctantly use Christidis and Boles as a
reference point.

Cheers - Trevor Ford.


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