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Common Moorhen or Common Gallinule (1 Viewer)

I agree with the sentiment proposed here, although I admit I might have disagreed even a year ago. With a few exceptions such as island endemics or where the distribution of a "split" taxon is similarly tiny, new names should be generated for all splits.

I do think the Moorhen situation (and scoter and snowy plover) situation isn't as bad as what has occurred in other groups, such as Canada Goose and Winter Wren, since both populations are largely allopatric.

I like Moorhen, but admittably that is because my early formative birding years occurred after the AOU changed to Moorhen from Gallinule. I think there is a good chance We will get the Laughing modifier, but slim to no chance Gallinule will be changed back to Moorhen. SACC voted it down even before the split, and I don't see them changing their minds
 
Hmm, if one of the problems is getting birders to recognise the new name of one half of a split, then is forcing them to learn two new names and completely forget the old name a solution or is it simply doubling the problem?

In general Holarctic to Nearctic and Palaearctic splits, e.g. the scoter and plover examples, should not present a problem at all, as everyone just continues to happily use the name they grew up with. Concocting new names to be used either side of the pond might just annoy both sets of birders. OK, I know that's not really what we should be looking at with nomenclature issues, but we all know it is a significant practical issue.

As far as the moorhens go, I agree that having two species in the same genus having 'Common' as modifier is potentially confusing. If using 'Moorhen' is out for G. galeata, how about American Gallinule? It's simple, clear and descriptive, and the analogous situation is with American Oystercatcher - not the only oystercatcher in the Americas by any means, but the most widespread one.

However, Eurasian Moorhen might work in a North American context, but not in an Old World one, as already pointed out. Are there any North American records of Old World Moorhen? If not, or if they are only from Alaska, it might just be easiest to treat all records entered on eBird as 'Common Moorhen' as being 'American Gallinule' unless there is a specific reason to think otherwise.

Any thoughts?
 
... Are there any North American records of Old World Moorhen? If not, or if they are only from Alaska, it might just be easiest to treat all records entered on eBird as 'Common Moorhen' as being 'American Gallinule' unless there is a specific reason to think otherwise.

A specimen taken on Shemya, Western Aleutians, AK, 14 October 2010. DNA analysis indicated the individual, a juvenile, is chloropus.

www.friendsofornithology.org/News2011.pdf
 
I have written but not yet submitted a proposal for the NACC (North American Checklist Committee) to rename Common Gallinule.
Bunny, you may call it as you want. COMMON names create COMMON people, like YOU. That committee should ask you for name of that bird. Because YOU are common folk, not them. Official names are only for convenience, to avoid misunderstandings. And good for such committees for this. But this is not your duty to use names enforced by anyone. Average people create language and change it constantly ... Grammar, ortography etc. are nonsens.
Is there any word in Lakota language for that coot ? That would solve this problem finally ...
 
Bunny, you may call it as you want. COMMON names create COMMON people, like YOU. That committee should ask you for name of that bird. Because YOU are common folk, not them. Official names are only for convenience, to avoid misunderstandings. And good for such committees for this. But this is not your duty to use names enforced by anyone. Average people create language and change it constantly ... Grammar, ortography etc. are nonsens.
Is there any word in Lakota language for that coot ? That would solve this problem finally ...

Marshall Iliff, an eBird project leader, has raised some important points about why the name 'Common Gallinule' should be changed. In the case of eBird, "official names" are absolutely necessary to maintain a dataset that ranges through the Americas and now across the world. People are not going to start memorizing Latin names to maintain their ebird checklists.

Official common names are a GODSEND, in my opinion. Individuals can scream and pout all they want about how horrible committees are for trying to standardized English names for birds. However, look at a widespread language such as Spanish, where every country in Latin America and Spain has a different name for each bird. Example: a Paraulata in Venezuela, a Mirlo in Ecuador, a Zorzal in Chile and Mexico, and a Tordo in Spain all refer to the same genus of birds (Turdus). I cannot understand a checklist in Spanish unless the scientific names are posted beside the Spanish common name. For everyone to understand which bird is being talked about in Spanish, one would have to be familiar with the local vernacular for each country that speaks Spanish or memorize scientific names.

I think the standardization of English names has definitely helped make the flow of information and understanding much easier, which was the main reason it was created in the first place. As for the moorhen/gallinule issue, I would definitely welcome a change back to moorhen (which is what I grew up with) and it would make more sense to me because every single other bird in the genus is a moorhen except the aberrant Spot-flanked Gallinule, but am willing to adapt to anything. In any case, Laughing Moorhen has a nice ring to it.

Carlos
 
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The AOU sets the common taxonomy and name usage used by The Auk, ABA, ebird, government usage, field guides, etc, which to be honest should be standardized within a given region to avoid confusion. I am not sure how a system set up for the "common people" could do.
 
You are very familiar with Spanish bird names. Paraulata from Venezuela sounds a little like native one and appears to be the best choice.

I was joking in the previous post, a list of reccomended common names is a little helpful, at least due to huge number of species, very frequently similar to each other and having very similar names, or not called at all, but they don't need to be "binominal" like latin names.
Such official names help to communicate without misunderstandings, because as you said people rather use and memorize common names, not scientific ones, and common names are also important.

And the best names would be those taken from native languages, not from someone's head. I mean most of all Genera without English names, not found anywhere else (not like one more Magpie or Thrush, except very atypical ones). For example new Genera somewhere from South America, like Venezuelan jungle. Why to create new artificial English names for them ? (and in other languages) Ask natives how they are called.

Very difficult situation in my opinion is with names of amphibians and reptiles:
http://www.ssarherps.org/pages/HerpCommNames.php
http://ebeltz.net/herps/etymain.html
They look sometimes a little like puzzle assembled by someone from words, very frequently from more then two elements (Atlantic Coast Slimy Salamander, Comal Blind Salamander, Allegheny Mountain Dusky Salamander, Western Bird-voiced Treefrog etc), only to create unique name for one more species distiguished from others on the basis of DNA analysis ... They also change, if you compare these two pages carefully.

You can find analogical official lists of bird names in other countries, here is Polish one:
http://www.eko.uj.edu.pl/listaptakow/rzedy.html
but many of them sound artificially, are not taken or are not direct translations from languages of countries, where they occur, but probably generated in someone's head, moreover some of names existing previously before creation of that list were replaced by something a little strange ...

By the way. My feeling is that sometimes changes in taxonomy includig splits of species are not reasonable at all and they are only result of competition between scientists who want very much to create someting new, to be in focus, and generate something curiosal sometimes ... Like merging reptiles and birds into one taxon ... Do they get pay or receive medal for each new idea or what ?

Regarding those coots, maybe really both of them should be called Mooren or eventually both of them Gallinule, because they not only belong to the same Genus, but are almost identical. And because these species were called in both continents the same way, local or native (for example Lakota) common names probably don't exist, so completely new name is needed. "Laughing" Moorhen proposed by Marshall Iliff sounds well. Common means nothing. "American" would be good too, because this is hallmark of this species.

Someone should also create English names of families and orders, because in many cases they don't exist at all ! And latin ones sound for people almost like random sequences of characters. English names are very appreciated in this case.
 
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..... In the case of eBird, "official names" are absolutely necessary to maintain a dataset that ranges through the Americas and now across the world. People are not going to start memorizing Latin names to maintain their ebird checklists.

Official common names are a GODSEND, in my opinion. Individuals can scream and pout all they want about how horrible committees are for trying to standardized English names for birds. ....

They don't have to "memorize" them, all they have to do is tick them off on a list. This to my mind is not a lot to ask of people making submissions to an official data base, and in any case is a Good Thing, since the scientific nomenclature conveys interesting & valuable information not necessarily expressed by the common names. And as far eBird specifically is concerned, surely submissions are already routinely vetted for rarities & nomenclatural & other anomalies, so why all the fuss about a few new names?

The only "screams" & "pouts" I've heard so far about any of this has come from the other side, birding bureaucrats of one kind or another whining about how much easier their jobs would be if English nomenclature were a little tidier.
 
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eBird has very good algorithm importing csv files containing observations, recognizing species of birds in it on the basis of their names, not unique ID numbers. And users do not have to add column with such IDs to a csv file. It would complicate things enormously.
But in such case names defining species very well are needed. Latin scientific names are unique, almost like IDs. Besides split and merged species, multiple synonyms, including names with mistakes, but maybe this is not very important in this case. However if only English common name is supported, it must point at correct species too ...
birding bureaucrats
Owners of languages and names. :scribe:
 
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In the case of eBird, "official names" are absolutely necessary to maintain a dataset that ranges through the Americas and now across the world. People are not going to start memorizing Latin names to maintain their ebird checklists.

Official common names are a GODSEND, in my opinion. Individuals can scream and pout all they want about how horrible committees are for trying to standardized English names for birds. However, look at a widespread language such as Spanish, where every country in Latin America and Spain has a different name for each bird. Example: a Paraulata in Venezuela, a Mirlo in Ecuador, a Zorzal in Chile and Mexico, and a Tordo in Spain all refer to the same genus of birds (Turdus). I cannot understand a checklist in Spanish unless the scientific names are posted beside the Spanish common name. For everyone to understand which bird is being talked about in Spanish, one would have to be familiar with the local vernacular for each country that speaks Spanish or memorize scientific names.
Carlos

When the father of bird classification corresponded, he used Latin or Latinised names for species because these names were in a language that was common among scholars across Europe. This approach, which remains essentially the same today, provides a common understanding, partly because being a 'dead' language, like Ancient Greek, Latin changes little.

Now we have calls for standardised bird names in many languages to 'ease understanding', but any attempt at making this a rigid system is doomed from the start because all current languages develop and change quickly. Thoughtfully invented words do help and clarify, but those arising from mere popularity are less likely to do so. English in particular is extraordinarily adaptable to changes, and it is this very point that I assume that the IOC English names project uses as the basis of their statement that use of any IOC English name is not in any way compulsory - all are merely recommendations.:t:

I note the 'people are not going to start memorising' assertion, particularly when there is little encouragement to do so, but I also note the irony of citing the variety of bird names in Spanish, itself a Romance or Latin-origin language. However, this kind of assertion does assume that 'the people' are not only unwilling, but also unable to change, which seems a touch patronising.:eek!:

The eBird system is very valuable to many people but the view attributed to eBird of rigid standardisation, though understandable, yet again reflects the desire to make a system all-encompassing by means of persuading the external world to change, rather than changing the system to cope with external changes. This isn't a modern tendency, far from it, for I think it first appeared in Cicero over 2000 years ago "We put the cart before the horse, and shut the stable door when the steed is stolen, in defiance of the old proverb.":-O

I seem to be alone in thinking that the obvious way to a common understanding of describing bird taxa is actually to use the existing 'common language' of the scientific name? It's worked for me in many parts of the world!

Almost every discipline (eg biology, mathematics, chemistry, physics) cannot be classified to the final degree, so we're not discussing anything unusual here! Bird taxa lists in modern languages are very useful tools for understanding, but they cannot ever be regarded as final in explaining everything, simply because of the limitations of language. I well appreciate this aspect, because I worked hard with many others to produce lists of European breeding birds in over a dozen languages in the early 1990s, which is why I think that some of the opinions expressed in this thread are but wishful thinking, because they are unachievable.
MJB
 
One of most basic problems is, that there is not precise definition of species.
Species are not "digital" (0 and 1) but "analog" creatures.
They convert on into another one in time:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylogenetic_tree
and in space:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ring_species_seagull.svg
(1 can interbreed wit 2, 2 with 3 etc, but not 7 with 1. Is it one species ? Is it species at all ?)
They can also make hybrids, especially Anseriformes, most of all captive ones, because the significant barreer exists only on the level of recognizing their appearance. However probably not fertile, then they fit definition of species ...

Only single individuals are well defined, because higher taxa form continuum in time and in space and don't exist in fact. And to be specific really, each individual on Earth should get own name, like people (John Smith etc).
In case of unicellular organisms like Protozoa even individuals don't exist, because they sometimes can merge each other for example during fertilization. And convert into one joined individual ... And that bacterial coniugation ...
And mycelium ... Is that one individual ? Maybe one fungi nucleus is one individual ?
 
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Now we have calls for standardised bird names in many languages to 'ease understanding', but any attempt at making this a rigid system is doomed from the start because all current languages develop and change quickly.

I do not see standardization as rigid of a system as you suggest. Certainly, it feels that most birders who dislike the system do so because they are attached to the names with which they grew up?

In any case, the only language that has really pushed for a standardization of names is English, as far as I know. Language, cuisine, customs are all constantly changing. I think such a naming system is much more fluid than you suggest. I think it is worth repeating that a standardized naming system is important in circles which might not use the same common name. A lot of American common names are very different from British common names or Australian common names.

I note the 'people are not going to start memorising' assertion, particularly when there is little encouragement to do so, but I also note the irony of citing the variety of bird names in Spanish, itself a Romance or Latin-origin language. However, this kind of assertion does assume that 'the people' are not only unwilling, but also unable to change, which seems a touch patronising.:eek!:

Where did I state that people are unable to change? Spanish suffers from a plethora of common names for everything from birds to fruit. The system is different, and I was merely pointing out that the direction English has taken with bird names has made life a lot easier for sharing information. There is a reason why many Latin American bird guides memorize the names of birds in English first -- the Spanish situation is just too messy in this respect.

The eBird system is very valuable to many people but the view attributed to eBird of rigid standardisation, though understandable, yet again reflects the desire to make a system all-encompassing by means of persuading the external world to change, rather than changing the system to cope with external changes.

Interesting. I see it from a completely different direction than you. I don't see the "external world" you refer to as all encompassing -- I see fragments of different peoples wanting to call a bird species by different names and somehow expecting others to be capable of understanding exactly what they say. Remember, the "rigid standardization" you refer to is really only important when sharing information with people who might not know that "divers" are "loons" or "Red Grouse" is a "Ptarmigan." You can call the bird whatever you want in your area.

I seem to be alone in thinking that the obvious way to a common understanding of describing bird taxa is actually to use the existing 'common language' of the scientific name? It's worked for me in many parts of the world!

But would people follow it? In botany, scientific names are paramount for mutual understanding over common names. However, the system that is entrenched expects everyone to learn the scientific names. I agree with you -- culture and language are flexible -- would just learning scientific names be feasible? Remember, they change frequently as well just as in botany...

Bird taxa lists in modern languages are very useful tools for understanding, but they cannot ever be regarded as final in explaining everything, simply because of the limitations of language. I well appreciate this aspect, because I worked hard with many others to produce lists of European breeding birds in over a dozen languages in the early 1990s, which is why I think that some of the opinions expressed in this thread are but wishful thinking, because they are unachievable.
MJB

It is an interesting point, if a bit patronizing, to think that the individuals trying to create a "rigid" system of standardized English names are idealistic and have unrealistic expectations of what such a system could do. I can't speak for others, but I do realize there are shortcomings and limitations to such a system.

In any case, it is a moot point, as we are already experiencing this standardized system right now. It is a fluid and changing system, although not incredibly so considering there are thousands of birds and only a relative handful of changes per year. I certainly prefer this situation over the system in Spanish, where understanding what a writer is referring to is much more difficult.

Carlos
 
This is obviously a difficult subject, or it wouldn’t generate so much debate, but I sometimes wonder whether there is a lot of over-analysis involved here.
On the one hand, I agree that a standardised common name is a good thing where there are many regional names: at least in theory. I also agree that it’s a good idea to rename all “daughter” species following a split: at least in theory. I also agree that it’s a good idea to have meaningful common names that reflect an important aspect of a bird’s appearance or behaviour: at least in theory.
However, whenever these principles are applied, we seem to encounter difficulties and in trying to be logical in one regard, often fail in other regards.
First of all, dealing with the many regional names issues: yes, standardisation makes sense, but will people in each of those regions change the names they call the birds they see? Experience suggests otherwise. In the UK, the attempt to impose “order” was met with contempt. I don’t know a single birder who calls a Dunnock a “Hedge Accentor”, a Little Ringed Plover or a “Little Plover”. Some of these names have cultural resonance, as well as long-established usage.
It’s also interesting that csanchez refers to the numerous Spanish language names for birds in a discussion about English common names. Even if settled English common names are produced, should we expect all non-English regional names to be dropped, and all non-English speakers to adopt names in a foreign language?
In the same way, if I am at my local pond and talk about Moorhens, it’s pretty bleeding obvious which moorhen I am talking about – and I assume the same applies to birders in the US. If I happen to be on Attu and discover a chloropus, I don’t think I will have difficulty in communicating its significance to any other birders who happen to be there. If this causes problems on e-bird, all I can say is: improve the user interface. The idea of naming birds to suit a computer programme seems…well, ghastly.
As far as renaming all daughter species after a split – again, we run into the problem of common usage. In the UK, we still talk about Rock Pipits. Our brains can, in fact, cope with the notion that Water Pipit, Buff-bellied Pipit (x2) and Rock Pipit are all hived from Anthus petrosus without exploding. To be honest, isn’t it a fact that birders who care about and are potentially affected by splits are generally likely to be at the upper levels of knowledge and interest, and are perfectly capable of dealing with taxonomic changes (although I must admit my addled brain draws the line at Chinese Phylloscopus warblers).
In an ideal world, all bird names would have some meaning relevant to the bird’s identity. However, this ideal doesn’t seem so great when one is faced with, for example, the slew of meaningless “tonal” distinctions of antbird colouration: when does jet become black, black become blackish, or greyish, or cinereous, or slaty etc etc. When do dots become spots? All of a sudden, those politically-incorrect neo-colonialist and often un-pronounceable names suddenly seem quite a good idea. I might not be able to pronounce Stoliczka, but his bushchat sure is a lot more memorable than white-browed bushchat (one of several bushchats which have white brows).
Anyhow, a long rant without much point, but as a final thought, in Brazil, the Portuguese bird names tend to be meaningless (although sometimes quite evocative, like “saudage” for Black and Gold Cotinga, referring to its wistful song). Brazilian birders have therefore come up with the brilliant idea of…….using scientific names. This seems the logical end-point of any effort to impose standardisation and rules which ignore common usage.
 
And as far eBird specifically is concerned, surely submissions are already routinely vetted for rarities & nomenclatural & other anomalies, so why all the fuss about a few new names?

Specifically about Ebird, the vetting is not an automated thing, there are lots of volunteers putting in a lot of work for that (several regular posters here included); making it a bit easier on them by making the names a little more unique would to my mind be a good thing.

Niels
 
Brazilian birders have therefore come up with the brilliant idea of…….using scientific names. This seems the logical end-point of any effort to impose standardisation and rules which ignore common usage.
Brasilia official language is Portuguese, which belongs to Romance languages family:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Languages_of_Europe_map.png
Maybe Latin for them sounds more familiar then for people using Germanic languages for example ?
But following this point of view using native names is not good idea, because they are difficult.
 
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Sorry, Locustella, I don't understand what you mean by your last sentence - perhaps you can explain?

As for Latin sounding more familiar to speakers of Romance languages, perhaps, but I don't think this is a real issue. After all, many words in "latin" (i.e. scientific) names are actually Greek (for example, at a guess, Locustella!!)
 
Google translator doesn't recognize Locustella as Greek word:
http://translate.google.pl/?hl=en&tab=wT#la|en|Locustella
Locust in Greek is ακρίδα, in Latin locusta, then Locustella seem to be derieved from Latin, not Greek. Grasshopper is lucustas in Latin. Locustella's songs are similar to Grasshoppers songs.
But it doesn't matter.
Unfortunately locust in Portuguese is gafanhoto, sparrow pardal, swan cisne (sim. to Cygnus ?) ... But birds are aves (like scient. Latin Aves), eagle águia (Aquila), raven corvo (Corvus) ! Overall grammar and pronunciation maybe are similar.
Sorry, Locustella, I don't understand what you mean by your last sentence - perhaps you can explain?
Because they are foreign and sound ODDLY.
 
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