-
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.
Bird Families of the World 15th edition (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Peter Kovalik
- Start date
Fred Ruhe
Well-known member
Rather I nice list with good texts and photos bur still a lot to be wanted:
Authorship of the family names
References for the family names
Included subfamilies, tribi, and genera
A diagnosis of the family
Perhaps some words on the evolutionary history of the family
and so on and so on.
Iám afraid we have to wait for the 16th edition tp get a very useful document
Fred
Authorship of the family names
References for the family names
Included subfamilies, tribi, and genera
A diagnosis of the family
Perhaps some words on the evolutionary history of the family
and so on and so on.
Iám afraid we have to wait for the 16th edition tp get a very useful document
Fred
mb1848
Well-known member
Fred Ruhe said:
This is a task that the Bird Forum collective could perform. It is not easy . There is Bock 1994. The first family listed by Roberson is Struthionidae. The author listed on a few internet sites is Latham 1790.
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/226470#page/15/mode/1up . Struthiones does not seem to be the precursor of Struthionidae? Vigors 1825 supposedly is the author of Struthionidae but I have not seen the OD.
The book mentioned by Roberson does not appear to list this information either. http://www.lynxeds.com/product/bird-families-world .
This is a task that the Bird Forum collective could perform. It is not easy . There is Bock 1994. The first family listed by Roberson is Struthionidae. The author listed on a few internet sites is Latham 1790.
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/226470#page/15/mode/1up . Struthiones does not seem to be the precursor of Struthionidae? Vigors 1825 supposedly is the author of Struthionidae but I have not seen the OD.
Fred Ruhe
Well-known member
Neither does HBW, or Birds of the Western Palaearctic, HANZAB, Birds of Africa and so on and on, professional works by a multitude of taxonomists who don't know that a name is a name + the author(s) + the work in which it is published, the reference.
And it doesn't matter whether you are writing for amateurs or professionals, if you give a name, please give it complete. In paleornithology the names almost always are given complete, in neornithology almost never.
It has the benefit that you don't have to specify how you family is defined because it is immediately clear.
Bock, 1994 is not very reliable
Fred
l_raty
laurent raty
Vigors 1825 is [this].
The Code does not regulate order names, but its letter does not really forbid that a family-group name be proposed for a taxon originally ranked as an order either. The only requirement that addresses original rank is that the name "11.7.1.2. be clearly used as a scientific name to denote a suprageneric taxon and not merely as a plural noun or adjective referring to the members of a genus", which fixes a lower, but no upper limit. Bock 1994 recognised two names (his Gallini and Glareolidae) that were originally used for "Ordnungen" by C.L. Brehm (Brehm 1830 and Brehm 1831, albeit Bock appears to have overlooked the former); Brehm's system was a bit unconventional by today's standards, however: what he called "Familien" were infrageneric subdivisions, and he used already established family-group names, quite a few of which he attributed to their correct authors ("Ardeidae Leach", etc.) at the rank of Ordnung. Also, historically, the Commission has called names introduced for orders family-group names. E.g., the Ordnung name "Coraces Naumann 1822" [here] was rejected by [Direction 58] as an incorrect subsequent spelling of "Coraciidae (correction of Coracinia Rafinesque 1815)", claiming it had Coracias as its "type genus". A rather absurd conclusion, IMHO (Coraces was certainly never "formed from" the genus name Coracias; coraces is a simple plural of corax, a Latin word borrowed from the Greek meaning "raven"; Coraces is a name for corvids, which in many early works including this one happened to include Coracias; as used by Naumann 1822, this name has no type genus -- it is taken directly from the Latin language; a family-group name with the exact same original spelling is available from A.E. Brehm 1866 [here], for a taxon excluding Coracias, type genus Corax Brehm 1857 [OD], a synonym of Corvus Linn. which didn't exist yet in 1822) but, at any rate, this suggests that being used at the rank of order does not always preclude being afforded family-group name status.
OTOH, a family-group name must be "formed from the stem of an available generic name [which] must be a name then used as valid in the new family-group taxon". Early suprageneric names were either newly-formed plural descriptive terms ("Palmipedes", "Steganopodes", and the likes), or the plural form of a pre-existing classical Latin/Greek word ("Gallinae" of Linnaeus, plural of Latin gallina = poultry). Unfortunately, in the latter case, it is far from exceptional that the very same classical words were also, at some point, introduced as generic names. E.g., four of the six original 1758 Linnaean bird order names are the plural form of words also now used in the singular for genera -- Accipitres is the plural of Accipiter, Picae that of Pica, Anseres that of Anser, Passeres that of Passer -- but Linnaeus 1758 used none of these as a generic name; all four are taken from Brisson 1760. Of course, if the names of a suprageneric taxon and that of a genus are both formed from the same classical term, the suprageneric taxon name will look like it was "formed from" the generic name, but this may not at all be how things actually happened. Struthio (nominative plural struthiones), an ostrich, is a classical Latin word; none of Latham's suprageneric names is clearly formed from an included generic name that would not also be a classical word. It seems at best questionable that Latham's intent was really to create a suprageneric taxon name "from" that of an included genus.
That being said, at the end of the day, the requirements and their interpretation (where you "place the limit") are a mere convention.
In birds, there is some kind of 'tradition' to accept the names of Rafinesque 1815 as earliest available family-group names; some would prefer to reject them and start with Leach 1819/1820; others accept some names from Illiger 1811. The 'tradition' is not very old, though -- it dates back from the late 1980s only.
Mammal guys appear to reject Rafinesque entirely, taking most of their earliest names from [Gray 1821] (e.g., Delphinidae Gray 1821 - [McKenna & Bell 1997], [Wikipedia]; not Delphinia Rafinesque 1815 [here], which is undoubtedly available by ornithological standards), with the odd exception like Cervidae, which is attributed to [Goldfuß 1820] (cf. [McKenna & Bell 1997], [Wikipedia]), a work very close to Illiger's and that was superbly ignored by Bock.
Last edited:
Mysticete
Well-known member
I have no problem criticizing HANZAB or other professional checklists, but I think it's a bit much to complain about a private website that is mostly an excuse to share photos and tales regarding the creators past attempts to see members of these different families. The Birder community is a lay hobby community, not a scientific community (although a lot of birders are pretty savvy on the science of course!)
If Birdforum had rules that no one mention a bird name without including original name references, there would be very very few posters here.
Nutcracker
Stop Brexit!
Isn't Picae (woodpeckers) from Picus (green woodpeckers; a 1758 Linnaean name), rather than Pica (magpies; Brisson 1760)?
l_raty
laurent raty
I grant that he didn't really explain, but it would have read Pici, then, I believe -- why change the ending (hence the gender and the meaning) in one of the names, but not in any of the others?
Of course, Brisson did not invent the word: pica was the magpie already for Pliny; the word was used frequently for a range of species in the pre-Linnaean literature (by authors like Gesner, Frisch, Albin, Edwards, Catesby, etc.); many of the citations in Systema Naturae are to birds named "Pica something" by an earlier writer, most of which are Picae. And, although Linnaeus didn't use it as a genus, he made it the specific name of his Corvus pica Linn. 1758.
Brisson just used it in a way that made it a generic name.
PS - Equalling Picae to woodpeckers is not correct. In 1758, Picae included the genera Psittacus, Ramphastos, Cuculus, Jynx, Picus, Corvus, Coracias, Sitta, Merops, Trochilus, Buceros, Crotophaga, Gracula, Paradisea, Alcedo, Upupa and Certhia.
(All of which are to be understood in an extremely broad sense -- i.e., Picus = all woodpeckers, not just green woodpeckers; we use this genus for green woodpeckers because Swainson said us to do so in 1820 [here]; 62 years earlier, in 1758, Linnaeus had no idea this might ever happen.)
Last edited:
Nutcracker
Stop Brexit!
l_raty
laurent raty
He had no molecular data yet... :king:
The group also includes the Pica brasiliensis of Albin [here], which is a toucan, the Pica glandaria benghalensis of the same author [here], which is a roller, the Pica glandaria of Gesner and others, e.g. Albin again [here], which is a Eurasian jay, the Pica glandaria caerulea cristata of Catesby [here], which is an American jay, the Pica abietum nigra guttata of Frisch [here], which is a nutcracker, the Pica orientalis, cauda duabus pennis longissimis of Edwards [here], which is a paradise-flycatcher, the Pica luteo nigra varia of Catesby [here] which is an American oriole, and the Pica minor benghalensis of Edwards [here], which is a magpie-robin.
Last edited:
StevePreddy
Well-known member
Fred, unless I've misunderstood your meaning, this statement is incorrect.
A family name, whether given in full, or in "abbreviated" form is merely a hook on which to hang whichever species an author chooses to include in it. It's not possible to tell, even with the full form of the name, how an author has chosen to circumscribe a family.
A case in point is Eupetidae Bonaparte 1850. You cannot tell from that whether an author means a monotypic family containing just the Rail-babbler, or a family which also contains the quail-thrushes and whipbirds, as was used by most checklists in the not too distant past. Were I to write a book that also included Spotted Elachura, Cryptic Warbler and Pink-legged Graveteiro in the same family, you wouldn't be able to tell that from the name either.
Nutcracker
Stop Brexit!
I was thinking of Linnaeus's etymology for his Aves Picæ - is it based on the genus name Picus, or the species name pica? I'm assuming the former, despite the gender difference you mentioned above?
Welsh Peregrine
Well-known member
Are we all being far too Picae?
Björn Bergenholtz
(former alias "Calalp")
Maybe the very first version/edition of Linnaeus's Systema naturæ 1735 (that later would turn into the cornerstone of modern taxonomy Systema naturæ 1758) will make it easier to understand? Here: Class (Classis): Aves, Order (Ordo): Picæ: "Rostrum superne compressum, convexum"
If of any help?
--
Last edited:
Nutcracker
Stop Brexit!
'Beak compressed and convex above' (if I've got my Latin right!) . . . which doesn't really fit the straight beak of Picus spp., though does fit a Magpie's bill better.
Interesting that some of Linnaeus's 1735 orders have names that have etymological derivatives now as genera, but are not listed there (e.g. Accipitres, but no Accipiter; Scolopaces, but not Scolopax). So maybe the order name isn't derived from any genus, but more the other way round, he or someone else created a genus based on the existing order name??
Also interesting that he moved parrots from Accipitres in 1735, to Picæ in 1758.
Interesting that some of Linnaeus's 1735 orders have names that have etymological derivatives now as genera, but are not listed there (e.g. Accipitres, but no Accipiter; Scolopaces, but not Scolopax). So maybe the order name isn't derived from any genus, but more the other way round, he or someone else created a genus based on the existing order name??
Also interesting that he moved parrots from Accipitres in 1735, to Picæ in 1758.
l_raty
laurent raty
On the preceding page, note #4, he says that he based the orders of animals, in ornithology, primarily on the appearance of the bill. ("[...] Ordines Animalium [...] in Ornithologia à figura Rostri [...] inprimis desumsi.") Parrots have a hooked bill, so if the bill was all that matters, it was not that illogical to place them with raptors and owls.
In my reading, his suprageneric names are simple plurals -- he never used a "stem + suffix different from a simple plural mark" method to form them.
- The names in -ae are formed from first-declension nouns (all those he used here have singular in -a),
- those in -i (none under Aves but see under Pisces) from second-declension masculine nouns (singular in -us; all those used are Latinized from the Greek),
- those in -a from second-declension neuter nouns (singular in -um), or third-declension neuter nouns (singular ending variable; pecus, serpens, reptile),
- those in -es from masculine or feminine third-declension nouns (singular ending variable; -is, -er, -ax, here).
In such a system, the second-declension noun Picus could only produce Pici, never "Picae", which is the regular plural of Pica.
In Latin, should you use a noun in -us with a modified plural -ae ending, it would be almost impossible not to understand it as a deliberate feminisation -- just like the addition of "-ess" to an English word that usually lacks it. I.e., "Picae", if derived from Picus, would mean "the Woodpeckeresses": exclusively the female woodpeckers. I know that zoologists have formed group names from the stem of generic names with a simple -ae ending, but these, where not simple regular plural endings of first-declension generic names (-a, -e, -as, or -es ending in the singular), were probably always a corruption of the Latin suffix -eae (feminine plural of -eus, -ea, -eum, analogous to the English suffix -eous). I would not expect this type of group-name formation from someone fluent in Latin.
Here, he indeed had an order Scolopaces without a genus Scolopax; in 1758 he had a genus Scolopax in an order Grallae. Also interesting is that, here, he had a genus Gallina in an order Gallinae; but in later versions he changed this into Gallus, while leaving the order name as it was. A possible interpretation is that he actually tried not to use the same word (even if with a different inflection) to denote a genus and an order in his classification.
In my reading, his suprageneric names are simple plurals -- he never used a "stem + suffix different from a simple plural mark" method to form them.
- The names in -ae are formed from first-declension nouns (all those he used here have singular in -a),
- those in -i (none under Aves but see under Pisces) from second-declension masculine nouns (singular in -us; all those used are Latinized from the Greek),
- those in -a from second-declension neuter nouns (singular in -um), or third-declension neuter nouns (singular ending variable; pecus, serpens, reptile),
- those in -es from masculine or feminine third-declension nouns (singular ending variable; -is, -er, -ax, here).
In such a system, the second-declension noun Picus could only produce Pici, never "Picae", which is the regular plural of Pica.
In Latin, should you use a noun in -us with a modified plural -ae ending, it would be almost impossible not to understand it as a deliberate feminisation -- just like the addition of "-ess" to an English word that usually lacks it. I.e., "Picae", if derived from Picus, would mean "the Woodpeckeresses": exclusively the female woodpeckers. I know that zoologists have formed group names from the stem of generic names with a simple -ae ending, but these, where not simple regular plural endings of first-declension generic names (-a, -e, -as, or -es ending in the singular), were probably always a corruption of the Latin suffix -eae (feminine plural of -eus, -ea, -eum, analogous to the English suffix -eous). I would not expect this type of group-name formation from someone fluent in Latin.
Here, he indeed had an order Scolopaces without a genus Scolopax; in 1758 he had a genus Scolopax in an order Grallae. Also interesting is that, here, he had a genus Gallina in an order Gallinae; but in later versions he changed this into Gallus, while leaving the order name as it was. A possible interpretation is that he actually tried not to use the same word (even if with a different inflection) to denote a genus and an order in his classification.
Last edited:
mb1848
Well-known member
In Families of the World 15th Roberson the Rheidae link has a wrong link it goes to a 404 because of a stray period. Here is that Family web page:
http://creagrus.home.montereybay.com/rheas.html .
Bonaparte in 1853 used Rheinae .
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/16564#page/656/mode/1up .
But I see it listed as Rheinae Bonaparte 1849.on the internet. I assume this is Bonaparte, 1849, Conspectus Systematis Ornithologiae, table. M. Westerman.
1851 use, http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/36766#page/215/mode/1up .
Gray's synonyms, http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/36723#page/502/mode/1up .
http://creagrus.home.montereybay.com/rheas.html .
Bonaparte in 1853 used Rheinae .
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/16564#page/656/mode/1up .
But I see it listed as Rheinae Bonaparte 1849.on the internet. I assume this is Bonaparte, 1849, Conspectus Systematis Ornithologiae, table. M. Westerman.
1851 use, http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/36766#page/215/mode/1up .
Gray's synonyms, http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/36723#page/502/mode/1up .
Last edited:
Similar threads
