On Sun, Mar 25, 2007 at 08:18:38PM +1000, Cas and Lisa Liber wrote:
> I was browsing over wikipedia where the members of the genus Aratinga (known
> to me as Conures) have all been renamed parakeets, leading to the ambiguous
> name "Orange-fronted parakeet" now referring to both a neotropical Aratinga
> canicularis as well as the NZ Cyanoramphus malherbi.
> Similarly, the Amazons of the genus Amazona are now called parrots.
> This seems somewhat odd to say the least.
> The AOU has these as official names, yet my Forshaw "Parrots of the World"
> has them called Conures and Amazons.... (not to mention most of the pet
> business) Anyone heard anything about official names
I dug out de Schauensee's 1970 "Birds of South America". It uses
"Parakeet" & "Parrot" for Aratingas & Amazons. With Eisenmenn he set
down English names for the South American avifauna which I gather have
mostly been followed by subsequent authors and the AOU. Presumably the
use of Conure & Amazon as English name stems from aviculture.
Digging out de Schaunesse bought back memories of backpacking through
South America 20 years ago through countries with (then) no field guide
available. I suspect I saw triple the species I identified.
I'm going to central America in 2 months and not only are there
magnificent guides like Howell&Webb so full of information and luscious
plates that you can barely carry them but there is even a summary guide
by Van Perlo so you have something compact&portable. And I've loaded
an MP3 player with the calls of 800+ species.
Andrew
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