Dear All,
Dear old Dr. John Latham is to blame. He named the bird in his
"Supplementum indicis ornithologici sive systematis ornithologiae" in
1802. Unfortunately Dr. Latham never voyaged as far as the Antipodes (I
don't think he ever left England), and had to rely on specimens supplied
by others, which would undoubtedly have been collected from along the
southern NSW and Tasmanian east coasts, and named them eponymously from
their collection location. It is a pity that not much was known about
what lived west of Bass Strait at that time, otherwise Larus p. might
very well have ended up with a very much different name if he knew the
true distribution.
Cheers,
Carl Clifford
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www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
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