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Cyanophaia (1 Viewer)

Taphrospilus

Well-known member
I am totally confused why Cyanophaia bicolor (Gmelin, JF, 1788) is the only species of the genus Cyanophaia.

I completly agree to the analysis here (maybe apart from Thalurania Wagleri (Less.) is a synonym of Cyanophaia bicolor (Gmelin, JF, 1788). But I have no opinion on it). I feel indeed Reichenbach messed this genus up here and I can't follow why the Gmelin humminbird should part of this genus.
 
In 2014's Molecular Phylogenetics and the Diversification of Hummingbirds Cyanophaia seems nested in Chlorostilbon. Looking at Gmelin he cited a work I had never read. Fermin Surin. It is not in BHL. Page 196 Google Book hummingbird 2:
https://books.google.com/books?id=6...SAhUWwWMKHWhbCBwQ6AEIVzAI#v=onepage&q&f=false a bird from Surinam. I do not think current bicolor is this bird. Gmelin mentions Latham's Sapphire and Emerald Humming Bird from Guadaloupe . That probably is bicolor. Which now is resident in Dominica and Martinique says wikipedia. But Guadeloupe and Dominica according to Cornell neotropical Birds.
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/127339#page/373/mode/1up .
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/10285#page/507/mode/1up .
 
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Gmelin mentions Latham's Sapphire and Emerald Humming Bird from Guadaloupe . That probably is bicolor. Which now is resident in Dominica and Martinique says wikipedia. But Guadeloupe and Dominica according to Cornell neotropical Birds.
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/127339#page/373/mode/1up .
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/10285#page/507/mode/1up .

http://www.birdforum.net/opus/Blue-headed_Hummingbird is in Dominica and Martinique, not Guadeloupe. The map in Neotropical birds online shows it correctly.

Niels
 
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Cyanophaia Reichenbach 1854, [OD]: the name was introduced with five originally included species; for each of these, Reichenbach suggested an original combination and an author (while he claimed the combination with Cyanophaia for himself), as well as a homeland.
  • Trochilus bicolor Linn. 1766 from Guyana.
    Linnaeus 1766 proposed no such name; but there is indeed a Trochilus bicolor Gmelin 1788, [OD], from Guadeloupe, in the 13th ed. of (Linnaeus') Systema naturae. Note that Reichenbach messed up a lot of his Linnaeus/Gmelin authorships (in fact, the four that are on this particular page are all wrong: "Tr. Thaumanthias L. Gm. 1766" should have been "Linn. 1766", "Tr. leucogaster L. Gm. 1766" should have been "L. Gm. 1788", "Tr. sapphirinus L. Gm. 1766" should have been "L. Gm. 1788", and "Tr. bicolor Linn. 1766" should have been "L. Gm. 1788"). Guyana is the type locality of the next species (Tr. sapphirinus) in Gmelin's work...

  • Trochilus coerulescens Lodd. (sine datum) from Mogabambo in Brazil.
    Loddige doesn't appear to have published such a name, and I have not been able to find a place called "Mogabambo" in Brazil. Nothing in the OD of Cyanophaia indicates what this name name was supposed to denote. A year later, in his [Trocholinarum enumeratio] (which acted as a revised second edition of the 1854 Aufzählung), Reichenbach added a reference, "t. 770. 4785.", to a figure on [one of his own published plates]. [Elliot 1881] contended (without explaining) that "Trochilus coerulescens, "Lodd.," is the Trochilus caeruleigularis, Gould" = Trochilus coeruleogularis Gould 1851, [OD], from Veragua in Panama, now in Lepidopyga. The bill pattern on Reichenbach's plate (both mandibles red with black tip) does not match this species, however, and treating "coerulescens" in Reichenbach's Aufzählung as a recognisable typo for coeruleogularis seems a bit of a stretch to me. (The name does not match except for the few first letters, the stated author does not match, the stated type locality does not match, no other clues are given.) Maybe Elliot had some kind of external evidence supporting this interpretation? The other option would be to treat coerulescens as new; but, in this case, this name is only available as Hylocharis (Cyanophaia) coerulescens Reichenbach 1855, from the Enumeratio and thanks to the reference to the plate which was added there; in the Aufzählung where Cyanophaia is introduced, it is a nomen nudum -- which bars it from becoming the type of the new genus name.

  • Trochilus lazulus Vieill. 1822 from Chrinatilla in Mexico.
    [OD]. Now placed in the synonymy of Campylopterus falcatus. Vieillot's original type locality was Amérique méridionale -- southern America; the species doesn't occur in Mexico at all; in [Trocholinarum enumeratio], Reichenbach treated this name as synonymous with the next one, which it is certainly not and rather suggests that he misinterpreted it entirely.

  • Trochilus Doubledayi Bourc. 1837 from Rio Negro in Brazil.
    [OD]. Now Cynanthus (latirostris) doubledayi, and actually from Mexico (but Bourcier, in the OD, had indeed said it to be presumably from Rio Négro). In [Trocholinarum enumeratio], Reichenbach made this name a synonym of Tr. lazulus Vieillot, and added a reference to figures 4783-84 on [his plate 770]. (This is the same plate that also shows Reichenbach's Hylocharis (Cyanophaia) coerulescens, which actually seems to differ from the bird in fig. 4783-84 mainly in having the blue of the throat extending down onto the breast and darker centres to the undertail coverts -- that is, about as doubledayi differs from latirostris...)

  • Trochilus Duchassainii Bourc. 1851 from Panama.
    [OD]. [Elliot 1881] identified this as an immature male of Tr. coeruleogularis Gould, noting that Bourcier's type was in his collection.
There is no originally fixed type.
Any of the originally included species cited by an available name in the OD can become the type by subsequent designation.
The first subsequent type designation was by [Gray 1855], who designated "Trochilus bicolor Linn.".
"Trochilus bicolor Linn. 1766" is interpreted as a messed-up citation of Trochilus bicolor Gmelin 1788.


(Problems in Elliot's interpretation, in the context of the present Code, include:
- He used a method of type fixation "by elimination", which stipulates that species which have been taken out of a genus by subsequent workers thereby ceased to be eligible as the type of this genus. Type fixations by elimination were quite widely accepted, mainly in America, up to the early 20th C; they are explicitly excluded by the ICZN. Note, in particular, that Elliot rejected Gmelin's bird as a possible type species on the account that he regarded this bird as belonging in Thalurania, hence not a possible candidate type species for Cyanophaia.
- The "type species" concept which he accepted was one of taxonomic species: he designated as the type of Cyanophaia "C. caeruleigularis", which he believed to be the valid name of a taxon to which he also referred two of the names cited by Reichenbach. In the ICZN, a type species is a nominal species (a nomenclatural concept of species, determined by an available species-group name and anchored into the reality by its type material), not a taxonomic species (a set of individuals out there, deemed conspecific by a taxonomist). Tr. coeruleogularis as such is not eligible to be the type of Cyanophaia because it was not among the names that Reichenbach cited in the OD. Whether Tr. coeruleogularis and two of the names cited by Reichenbach are deemed to apply to the same taxonomic species, or not, is a taxonomic opinion, not nomenclatural business. Nomenclaturally, these three names must be treated as three distinct objects; only one of them can be the type of the genus.)
 
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[*]Trochilus lazulus Vieill. 1822 from Chrinatilla in Mexico.
[OD]. Now placed in the synonymy of Campylopterus falcatus. Vieillot's original type locality was Amérique méridionale -- southern America; the species doesn't occur in Mexico at all; in [Trocholinarum enumeratio], Reichenbach treated this name as synonymous with the next one, which it is certainly not and rather suggests that he misinterpreted it entirely.

There is as well the opinion Doubtful taxon. See here.
 
There is as well the opinion Doubtful taxon. See here.
OK, but still in Campyloptera (cf. the black bill and square tail in the description), so hardly a possible synonym of Tr. doubledayi.

Any idea on which base Hume makes the putative range "Central America" ? As I already wrote above, Vieillot wrote Amérique méridionale which means "Southern", not "Central" America. He used this phrase to describe the range of many species found in South America, presumably deliberately -- e.g., just see the species that follows Tr. lazulus immediately: Tr. glaucopis, which is the Violet-capped Woodnymph, exclusively South American, and which Vieillot certainly did not believe to be Middle-American as he called it "l'Oiseau-Mouche à queue fourchue du Brésil" in French.
 
Mogobambo? My Google search did produce a document containing that name:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...4_Xo7AaiJRvIvWDMQ&sig2=U_T7Sd9_evxa52O0t4Cwog

It's on the website of the Gobierno Regional de San Martin, which is located in Moyobambo, Peru. (My virus scanner deems it "Unsafe" so I haven't downloaded it.) Anyway it's not in Brazil now, that's true, but in the 19th century collectors' descriptions weren't that precise. Neither were the boundaries of the countries in the Amazon basin either. So I would identify "Mogobambo" with the modern-day Moyobambo.
 
Any idea on which base Hume makes the putative range "Central America" ? As I already wrote above, Vieillot wrote Amérique méridionale which means "Southern", not "Central" America.

I agree with your South America. Berlepsch here placed the species into Colombia. Maybe if someone knows where the collection of Guillaume Michel Jérôme Meiffren Laugier went to it may be possible to find more information about Vieillots Trochilus lazulus (if the specimen is still existing). The common name of Campylopterus falcatus is Lazuline sabrewing which might be a relict of Vieillot original name.

P.S.

Laugier de Chartrouse, Meiffren-Guillaume-Michel-Jérôme, Baron de Botaniste français qui a vendu à Paris en 1837 une collection d'oiseaux réunie à Arles et qui a publié en 1859 une note sur la flore des environs d'Arles.
Extract here.

Maybe BMHN?

Another Nestor meridionalis specimen, this time from the South Island, came to the BMNH via Baron Guillaume Michel Jerome MEIFFREN-LAUGIER DE CHARTROUSE ( 1772- 1843, cf.
birth register ofthe Departement Bouches-du-Rhone),
Here.
 
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[Fermin] described three hummingbirds.
  • The first one is described as largest, with a glittering green throat, glittering red breast and belly, reddish back, purple elongated central tail feathers, and a decurved bill. This makes it a Crimson Topaz Topaza pella, I believe.
  • The second is described as one-third smaller, with golden-green upperparts, an emerald-green throat, a very bright, glittering blue breast, and a straight bill. The combination 'green throat / blue breast' is only present in a handful of hummingbird species. (The throat seems to be the first thing that 'becomes blue' in the underparts, so that most species that have a blue breast also have a blue throat.) In Surinam, this description suggests Fork-tailed Woodnymph Thalurania forcata, I think.
  • The third one is described as still smaller, with some kind of short, ruby-coloured crest, a very small and straight bill, a glittering golden throat, very dark red belly, back and wings, and an orange tail. This makes it, clearly, a Ruby-topaz Hummingbird Chrysolampis mosquitus.
Gmelin's reference was to 'Colibri Nr.2', the second species. But Gmelin's description:
Tr. smaragdino-aureus, capite gulaque cyaneis.
...indicates an emerald-golden bird with a blue head and throat, which conflicts very strongly with Fermin's second bird, hence one might expect that this reference would be dismissed as incorrect.

Tr. caeuruleus Vieillot is a synonym of Tr. notatus Reich 1893 [OD], now Chlorostilbon notatus, the Blue-chinned Emerald or Sapphire. Reichenbach placed this bird in the genus Chlorestes and illustrated it on pl. 692, fig. 4534-35 (upper bird [here]). It's a very different bird from his Hylocharis (Cyanophaia) coerulescens (lower bird [here]).
 
It's on the website of the Gobierno Regional de San Martin, which is located in Moyobambo, Peru. (My virus scanner deems it "Unsafe" so I haven't downloaded it.) Anyway it's not in Brazil now, that's true, but in the 19th century collectors' descriptions weren't that precise. Neither were the boundaries of the countries in the Amazon basin either. So I would identify "Mogobambo" with the modern-day Moyobambo.
It's a scanned document and I can't find any 'Mogobambo' in it. (But it does include several occurrences of 'Moyobamba'.)
'Moyobamba' certainly seems to be a possible interpretation for Reichenbach's 'Mogabambo' indeed.
 
There is a place name in Portugal called Pai Mogo. And a place name in Spain called Paimoyo. Gmelin thought it was in Brasil, where Portuguese is spoken. Pelzeln thought Bolivia and I think Peru where Spanish is spoken.
Thanks to Laurent for the hard work on Fermin's description. I do not think that Vieillot's caeuruleus is a synonym of Tr. notatus Reich 1893 because that bird is not on Martinique. I wonder if Vieillot's skin is still at the museum?
https://science.mnhn.fr/institution/mnhn/collection/zo/item/ac-1945-185?listIndex=3&listCount=239 . The picture was based on a bird from Audebert's collection but Audebert died in 1800.
 
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I am still curious where his collection was sold to? I assume the Catalogue des oiseaux de la collection de M. le baron Laugier de Chartreuse was prepared for an auction after his death (as for many others). Maybe Trochilus lazulus was part of this auction.

P:S. Just realized Catalogue des oiseaux de la collection Arles.
 
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I am not sure the Catalogue of birds was prepared for an auction after death. It was printed in 1836 and he did not die until 1843. I think it was an ego thing. Australian library has a good description.
http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/3624587 .
Here is a picture from la galerie des oiseaux du cabinet d'histoire naturelle du jardin du roi by Vieillot and Oudart:
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/103209#page/879/mode/1up .
Lesson in 1831 says T. lazurus is the Mango Hummingbird from Jamaica.
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/111050#page/328/mode/1up .
Gould has an interesting comment on lazulus.
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/106359#page/182/mode/1up .
"I am still curious where his collection was sold to?"
Tring, Berlin and Paris museums according to :
http://repository.naturalis.nl/document/42163M .
 
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I am not sure the Catalogue of birds was prepared for an auction after death.

I am not sure if you are right with this assumption. His project with Temminck (Nouveau recueil de planches coloriées d'oiseaux) was nearly done at that time. He might have than lost interest in his collection.

Stresemann wrote in his Ornithology from Aristotle to the present how he convinced Temminck in 1820 in Paris to start this project which lasts from 1820 till 1839. Thomas Bellerby Wilson bought at that time a lot collections from France. Maybe parts went for Philadelphia?
 
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