• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Procellariiformes (1 Viewer)

Reviewed by Rick Wright on The ABA Blog: Howell: Petrels, Albatrosses, and Storm-Petrels of North America.

Confirming one of Rick's observations, the preview includes examples of 'Trinidade' Petrel, and 'Trinidad' Petrel, but sadly no Trindade Petrels. Also, an interesting point about hasitata (which Jobling 2010 attributes to haesitatus).

[Still awaiting my copy. Latest estimate from Amazon UK: 3-10 Feb 2012.]

from the review:
But even if you're not going down to the sea in boats, Petrels, in its sophistication of approach and exemplary detail, may well be the most useful book you read this year.

Quite high praise

Niels
 
Rick Wright said"The specific epithet of the Black-capped Petrel, hasitata, is probably a misspelling not of haesitata but of hastata, meaning blade-shaped, in reference to the wings"

I am certain that Pt. hasitata is not the correct name for Black-capped Petrel. It stems from one showing up in Norfolk, England and Alfred Newman trying to figure it out.
I wrote about this before. Part of the trouble is that Gould told him : The petrel you write about is the same as that to which I gave the name of' rubritarsi,' but as that name was never published, of course no notice can be taken of it.
Newton Yarrell, Gould and George Gray were all smart fellows and all the problems with the name are all presented in the Zoologist article. Temminck bought the bird Kuhl described (from Bullock) and produced a drawing (different from G. & J.R. Forster’s drawing #97 & 98?) http://www.archive.org/stream/Nouveaurecueild5Temm#page/416/mode/2up/search/hasite
Mr. George Robert Gray, to whom I sent the drawings from which the engravings illustrating this paper were taken, with a request that he would inform me whether they represented the bird as differing from the specimen which belonged to the Zoological Society, or from the figure in the 'Planches Coloriees,' tells me that " the crest is not exhibited in Temminck's figure, nor in the specimen. There is less black on the top of the head in the figure than is given in your drawing, which causes one to suppose that the figure was taken from a more adult example. The specimen from the Society also differs from the drawing sent—the black on the forehead advances to the base of the nostrils, and the black on the hind head extends further down the nape. These variations may prove that the Museum's specimen is rather younger than the example taken in Norfolk. In all other respects they agree." Mr. Yarrell considers Mr. Newcome's bird as decidedly adult. But Newton went ahead and named the Black-capped Petrel hasitata.
http://books.google.com/books?id=cM...itata&q=hasitata#v=snippet&q=hasitata&f=false .

Anyway Rick Wright is I think wrong about hasitata . Kuhl (1820)gives credit to Forster for the name Procellaria hasitata but J. R. Forster in MS (not published until 1844 by Lichtenstein)used haesitata. And in Kuhl’s description of the bird he says Cauda cuneiformi, that is tail wedge-shaped. Temminck gave the French name of Petrel hasite. So nowhere is Kuhl’s bird described as having dagger shaped anything.
http://biodiversitylibrary.org/item/89679#page/155/mode/1up Kuhl, p. 142
 
Last edited:
Reviewed by Rick Wright on The ABA Blog: Howell: Petrels, Albatrosses, and Storm-Petrels of North America.

Confirming one of Rick's observations, the preview includes examples of 'Trinidade' Petrel, and 'Trinidad' Petrel, but sadly no Trindade Petrels. Also, an interesting point about hasitata (which Jobling 2010 attributes to haesitatus).

[1] From my perspective as a long-time reference book editor, I have to weigh in with the observation that the book's editor (and further up, the publisher) should bear part of the onus here. University presses in particular long ago abdicated all responsibility to help authors produce the best possible content. Presses don't usually employ good copy editors to vet every page of ms. submitted, and authors aren't told that proofreading from a computer screen is highly error-prone. However, I do admit a simple text search would have coughed up the irregularities.

[Still awaiting my copy. Latest estimate from Amazon UK: 3-10 Feb 2012.]

[2] I took a chance and downloaded the Kindle version. It turns out you don't need a color Kindle: you can view it from "the cloud" on your computer, download it to your computer and view it from the free Kindle program, and have duplicate copies on your other devices. I found the color photo rendition quite good on my laptop screen and smartphone both (but will compare it to the print version when the local library gets a copy). One can add notations, bookmarks, etc. I'm no longer a skeptic (Br. Eng. sceptic).
 
Last edited:
In a response to the review North American Birds editor Ned Brinkley states: “BTW, I think the typos for Trinidade Petrel in the captions that Rick mentions were introduced by a graphic designer rather than by the author!” I think I understand now why the Amercanskis keep adding that ‘I’. The Principality of Trinidad was declared in 1893, when the American James Harden-Hickey claimed the uninhabited island Trindade . In July 1895, the British tried to take possession of this strategic position in the Atlantic, basing their claim on the 1700 visit by English astronomer Edmund Halley. The British called it Trinidade also. The SACC says that Numida meleagris Helmeted Guineafowl: Introduced on Trindade island, Brazil, but subsequently eradicated (Alves et al. 2011). Alves says that supposedly Edmund Halley brought Guineafowl to the Island in the year 1700. Wikipedia says Nowadays, Brazilian presence is marked by a permanent Brazilian Navy base on the main island. Alves says that the Brazilian navy eradicated the Guineafowl.

Mr. Brinkley also states: “The fates of all the proposed nomenclatural and taxonomic changes will be interesting to follow. If history is any guide (e.g., the Howell/Webb guide to Mexico and northern Central America, almost all of whose "renegade" splits and re-namings are now accepted), then we may see a few of these on "official" checklists in the not-too-distant future” Discuss.
 
Re Steve Howell's use of trinomial species names with the parent species name enclosed in square brackets...

My understanding is that Howell believes that the taxa presented in this form in the list of species covered (p xi-xii) are best treated as full species.

But now having the book, it's apparent that this representation is also used at lower levels within the individual species accounts, without specific justification. eg, Audubon's Shearwater Puffinus lherminieri is treated as a single polytypic species, with two subspecies recognised by Howell: P. [l.] lherminieri Antillean Shearwater (including P. [l.] auduboni Bahama Shearwater), and P. [l.] loyemilleri. It seems contradictory to conclude that a taxon (auduboni) doesn't merit subspecific recognition, whilst simultaneously suggesting that it might be better treated as a distinct species.

PS. On reflection, perhaps such a position is not inconsistent with the increasing trend towards recognition of discrete, cryptic, breeding populations of tubenoses as distinct species.
 
Last edited:
I am not so sure...from what I can see of Steve Howell's viewpoints on taxonomy, he probably does believe those represent different species...There simply might be less of a published reasoning to discuss.
 
I am not so sure...from what I can see of Steve Howell's viewpoints on taxonomy, he probably does believe those represent different species...
Perhaps. But if Puffinus [lherminieri] auduboni is believed to be a possible/probable species, why not at least recognise P. l. auduboni as a subspecies?
 
Monotypic?
I was referring to the fact that Howell doesn't even recognise auduboni as a valid subspecies of P. lherminieri (treating it as a synonym of nominate lherminieri pending further studies), but nevertheless indicates that P. [l.] auduboni (monotypic) is a possible species!
 
Last edited:
Mayr & Smith 2012

Mayr & Smith 2012. Phylogenetic affinities and taxonomy of the Oligocene Diomedeoididae, and the basal divergences amongst extant procellariiform birds. Zool J Linn Soc 166(4): 854–875. [abstract]
 
Last edited:
Antarctic Procellariiformes

Garnero, Del, Boccelli, Oliveira, Ledesma, Montalti, Coria & Gunski 2013. Chromosomal characterization of four Antarctic Procellariiformes. Marine Ornithol 41(1): 63–68. [pdf]
 
Described from the Ardennes? :eek!::eek!::eek!:
We don't have that many shearwaters in the Ardennes... 8-P

Ardenna was introduced as a genus-group name by Reichenbach (1852: Avium Systema Naturale / Das natürliche System der Vögel), who attributed it to Ulysses Aldrovandus. (Aldrovandus was pre-Linnean, hence his names "do not count" in nomenclature.)
Aldrovandus (1603: Ornithologiae. Tomus tertius, ac postremus, book XIX, chapter III, pp.57-62) did not actually use "Ardenna", though, but instead "Artenna", in a chapter covering what he otherwise called Avis Diomedea ("Diomedean Bird"), and presenting it as the name used for this bird by the inhabitants of the Tremiti islands (formerly Diomedeae insulae), in the Adriatic sea. This Avis Diomedea is the Scopoli's Shearwater (there is even a rather recognizable illustration on p.59).
Nevertheless, Reichenbach designated as type species for his Ardenna, Puffinus major Faber, 1822, the Stóra Skrofa of Iceland, which is the Great Shearwater.

For what it's worth, cox1 has a signal very similar to cytb regarding the relationships between the three shearwater goups: Calonectris appears slightly closer to Puffinus s.s. than Ardenna, but without statistical support. With each gene in isolation, the relationship does not survive ML bootstrapping (bootstrap support <50%: trichotomy in the consensus trees). Combining the two genes produces slightly better results but, even then, support remains unsatisfactory (I get supports ranging between 55 and 65%, depending on which taxa are included in the analysis -- I have attached an example). No other gene has published sequences for members of the three groups.

(Also, re. the last point in the SACC proposal: to match the data, P. subalaris should not simply "precede P. lherminieri and P. assimilis". It should precede P. puffinus.)
 

Attachments

  • Procellariidae-cytb+cox1.pdf
    8.7 KB · Views: 108
Last edited:
For what it's worth, cox1 has a signal very similar to cytb regarding the relationships between the three shearwater goups: Calonectris appears slightly closer to Puffinus s.s. than Ardenna, but without statistical support. With each gene in isolation, the relationship does not survive ML bootstrapping (bootstrap support <50%: trichotomy in the consensus trees). Combining the two genes produces slightly better results but, even then, support remains unsatisfactory (I get supports ranging between 55 and 65%, depending on which taxa are included in the analysis -- I have attached an example). No other gene has published sequences for members of the three groups.

Laurent,
Given the above, how robust do you consider Ardenna as applied?
MJB
 
Given the above, how robust do you consider Ardenna as applied?
The monophyly of the three subgroups (Calonectris, Puffinus s.s., Ardenna) is solid, so it is robust in the sense that, if adopted, it is highly unlikely that the change would have to be reverted. But, as always, the price to pay is instability, and the data currently do not show with confidence that the change cannot be avoided.
FWIW, the results of the recent analysis by Holt & Jønsson suggest this group is overlumped in comparison to others (and in fact could possibly be split more than suggested here), so at least the suggested change would not appear to go in the wrong direction. There are many weaknesses in the tree used by Holt & Jønsson, though.
 
The monophyly of the three subgroups (Calonectris, Puffinus s.s., Ardenna) is solid, so it is robust in the sense that, if adopted, it is highly unlikely that the change would have to be reverted. But, as always, the price to pay is instability, and the data currently do not show with confidence that the change cannot be avoided.
FWIW, the results of the recent analysis by Holt & Jønsson suggest this group is overlumped in comparison to others (and in fact could possibly be split more than suggested here), so at least the suggested change would not appear to go in the wrong direction. There are many weaknesses in the tree used by Holt & Jønsson, though.

Many, many thanks, Laurent, for the necessary context I should consider!
MJB
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top