Hi, I’m having some trouble sorting out the names of some birds and have become quiet confused. Take for example Horsfield’s Bronze Cuckoo, its called Chalcites basalis on the Birdlife Australia web site, BWL-Birdlife working list, Australian Government-Department of the Environment list. While it’s Chrysococcyx basalis on Graeme Chapman, Wikipedia, BOC IOC checklist 2. There seems to be different scientific names, is there a definitive list, or even a preferred list ? I thought the idea of scientific names was to remove all this confusion. Regards Steve Sheers _______________________________________________ Birding-Aus mailing list Birding-Aus@birding-aus.org To change settings or unsubscribe visit: http://birding-aus.org/mailman/listinfo/birding-aus_birding-aus.org
Hi Martin, Firstly, no, basalis (masc), basalis (fem), basale (neutr) is an adjective of the 3rd declension (aka ‘i declension’). Thus, it can only be nominative or genitive singular. Ablative plural would be ‘basalibus’. So, in case the genus name switches to a neuter name ‘basalis’ would switch to ‘basale’ (nominative singular neuter). Yeah, finally I can say that Latin as my second language (as opposed to English as my third language) was not a waste 😉 Secondly, I think you are right regarding type and nominate. But there are examples where the English name doesn’t remain with the nominate name (e.g. Scopoli’s Shearwater C. diomedea, Cory’s Shearwater C. borealis). Cheers, Nikolas —————- Nikolas Haass nhaass@yahoo.com Brisbane, QLD ________________________________ From: Martin Cake < M.Cake@murdoch.edu.au> Cc: “birding-aus@birding-aus.org” < birding-aus@birding-aus.org> Sent: Wednesday, March 5, 2014 4:20 PM Excellent points but I reckon I’ve got you guys covered on a technicality
Firstly Dave (warning – amateur Latin ahead!) I *think* basalis is an ablative plural (ie. ‘with [bronze] bases’), which will be OK for any gender of genus (someone may correct me here?). So hopefully I was right to say the species name basalis won’t change. But your general point was of course correct and my overgeneralisation wrong. Secondly Nicholas I think I already had you covered when I said it won’t change “for the type population”. Because wouldn’t the type also be the nominate and would keep the name by rule of priority? (though perhaps there are exceptions to this???) Anyway glad we’re nitpicking about Latin rules not the old IOC vs BirdLife war, I clearly settled that one already 
Martin _______________________________________________ Birding-Aus mailing list Birding-Aus@birding-aus.org To change settings or unsubscribe visit: http://birding-aus.org/mailman/listinfo/birding-aus_birding-aus.org
Yes, very true. Some of the early Ornithologists were not as good at Latin and Greek as they thought they were. Though with the number of declensions and conjugations in Latin, you can’t really blame them. Cheers, Carl Clifford On 5 Mar 2014, at 10:59 am, Dave Torr < davidtorr@gmail.com> wrote: _______________________________________________ Birding-Aus mailing list Birding-Aus@birding-aus.org To change settings or unsubscribe visit: http://birding-aus.org/mailman/listinfo/birding-aus_birding-aus.org
Yes, very true. Some of the early Ornithologists were not as good at Latin and Greek as they thought they were. Though with the number of declensions and conjugations in Latin, you can’t really blame them. Cheers, Carl Clifford On 5 Mar 2014, at 10:59 am, Dave Torr < davidtorr@gmail.com> wrote: _______________________________________________ Birding-Aus mailing list Birding-Aus@birding-aus.org To change settings or unsubscribe visit: http://birding-aus.org/mailman/listinfo/birding-aus_birding-aus.org
Very true. And occasionally a mistake was made in the original gender assignment and the name gets changed even if the genus has not changed…. On 5 March 2014 16:12, Nikolas Haass < nhaass@yahoo.com> wrote: _______________________________________________ Birding-Aus mailing list Birding-Aus@birding-aus.org To change settings or unsubscribe visit: http://birding-aus.org/mailman/listinfo/birding-aus_birding-aus.org
… and obviously splitting or lumping, results in species name changes as well. In the first case, a subspecies name gets elevated to a species name and vice versa in the latter case. (However, this usually also results in a change of the English name). Nikolas —————- Nikolas Haass nhaass@yahoo.com Brisbane, QLD ________________________________ From: Dave Torr < davidtorr@gmail.com> Cc: “birding-aus@birding-aus.org” < birding-aus@birding-aus.org> Sent: Wednesday, March 5, 2014 3:05 PM My understanding Martin (and I am not an expert at all) is that the specific name is usually construed as an adjective which modifies the genus part of the name. The laws of Latin gender apply and if a bird is moved from a “masculine” gender to a “feminine” one (a strange concept that we do not have in English) then I believe that the specific part may be modified accordingly? So it is not true that it never changes – but usually the change is a minor one on the ending of the word? But I agree it does not happen very often! On 5 March 2014 15:22, Martin Cake < M.Cake@murdoch.edu.au> wrote: _______________________________________________ Birding-Aus mailing list Birding-Aus@birding-aus.org To change settings or unsubscribe visit: http://birding-aus.org/mailman/listinfo/birding-aus_birding-aus.org _______________________________________________ Birding-Aus mailing list Birding-Aus@birding-aus.org To change settings or unsubscribe visit: http://birding-aus.org/mailman/listinfo/birding-aus_birding-aus.org
My understanding Martin (and I am not an expert at all) is that the specific name is usually construed as an adjective which modifies the genus part of the name. The laws of Latin gender apply and if a bird is moved from a “masculine” gender to a “feminine” one (a strange concept that we do not have in English) then I believe that the specific part may be modified accordingly? So it is not true that it never changes – but usually the change is a minor one on the ending of the word? But I agree it does not happen very often! On 5 March 2014 15:22, Martin Cake < M.Cake@murdoch.edu.au> wrote: _______________________________________________ Birding-Aus mailing list Birding-Aus@birding-aus.org To change settings or unsubscribe visit: http://birding-aus.org/mailman/listinfo/birding-aus_birding-aus.org
Note here that you used the common English or vernacular name to track down those different scientific names for the same species. So in this case the vernacular name was more helpful than the Latin or scientific name. I suggest that this is usually the case. Vernacular names are far for stable than scientific names and a more useful tool when tracking historical records. That is particularly so in this day and age where DNA is being used to define new species but it is not a new phenomena. That observation was made by one of the major seabird researchers early last century. I thought that it was Robert Cushman Murphy in his two volume tome ‘Oceanic Birds of South America’ published in 1936 but in a brief search just now I didn’t find it so I could be wrong with that citation. Mike Carter 30 Canadian Bay Road Mount Eliza VIC 3930 Tel (03) 9787 7136 —– Original Message —– Sent: Monday, March 03, 2014 7:18 PM _______________________________________________ Birding-Aus mailing list Birding-Aus@birding-aus.org To change settings or unsubscribe visit: http://birding-aus.org/mailman/listinfo/birding-aus_birding-aus.org
Of course, if all taxonomists agreed they would be even more endangered – and birders would be less confused
On 5 March 2014 00:11, Helen Larson < gobywan2001@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: _______________________________________________ Birding-Aus mailing list Birding-Aus@birding-aus.org To change settings or unsubscribe visit: http://birding-aus.org/mailman/listinfo/birding-aus_birding-aus.org
No, us taxonomists try to work out the right names, which often exist among plenty of confusion. Science allows for scepticism; people can disagree with your classification. Pick a classification you like and stick with it. Be kind to taxonomists, an endangered species. Helen Sent from my iPhone _______________________________________________ Birding-Aus mailing list Birding-Aus@birding-aus.org To change settings or unsubscribe visit: http://birding-aus.org/mailman/listinfo/birding-aus_birding-aus.org
Steve. Yes it is confusing. Taxonomists, like other scientists, only agree sometimes. On the IOC website http://www.worldbirdnames.org there is a spreadsheet available for download, in which the scientific names used by several different taxonomies are compared. It can be very useful to refer to when confusion arises. For example, In the case of the Horsfield’s Bronze Cuckoo it can be seen that the genus name Chalcites is used by the Howard and Moore Checklist, as well as the Peters checklist. It was also the name preferred in the Christidis & Boles List, which is still the preferred list of many Aussie birders. My suggestion for your lists etc is pick a checklist to follow and forget about the rest. And, no, there is no definitive list; only lists preferred by different authorities. Cheers Steve Murray —–Original Message—– Steve Sheers Sent: Monday, 3 March 2014 6:18 PM Hi, I’m having some trouble sorting out the names of some birds and have become quiet confused. Take for example Horsfield’s Bronze Cuckoo, its called Chalcites basalis on the Birdlife Australia web site, BWL-Birdlife working list, Australian Government-Department of the Environment list. While it’s Chrysococcyx basalis on Graeme Chapman, Wikipedia, BOC IOC checklist 2. There seems to be different scientific names, is there a definitive list, or even a preferred list ? I thought the idea of scientific names was to remove all this confusion. Regards Steve Sheers _______________________________________________ Birding-Aus mailing list Birding-Aus@birding-aus.org To change settings or unsubscribe visit: http://birding-aus.org/mailman/listinfo/birding-aus_birding-aus.org _______________________________________________ Birding-Aus mailing list Birding-Aus@birding-aus.org To change settings or unsubscribe visit: http://birding-aus.org/mailman/listinfo/birding-aus_birding-aus.org