Greater Scaup subspecies ranges (1 Viewer)

[jmorlan]

Banks (1986) found that the Greater Scaup breeding and wintering in East Asia were indistinguishable from the pale backed nominate A. m. marila of Europe and this conclusion has been adopted by Clements and BNA. However other sources such as IOC, H&M4, HBW and "Birds of Japan" by Brazil (2018) apply the name A. m. nearctica to these East Asian birds. Who is right?

References:

Banks, R.C. (1986). "Subspecies of the Greater Scaup and their names" Wilson Bulletin. 98 (3): 433–444.

Carboneras, C. & Kirwan, G.M. (2018). Greater Scaup (Aythya marila). In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. (retrieved from https://www.hbw.com/node/52912 on 2 October 2018).

Kessel, B., D. A. Rocque, and J. S. Barclay (2002). Greater Scaup (Aythya marila), version 2.0. In The Birds of North America (A. F. Poole and F. B. Gill, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bna.650

 

[l_raty]

I don't know who is right but, on re-reading it ([here], p. 440, § 3), Banks' assessment of colour differences strikes me as a bit casual/subjective, actually... (Particularly considering that he appears to have been running against the opinion of all the earlier authors he cited -- who regarded E Asian birds as either intermediate, or closer to American birds.)

FWIW, I see no suggestion of a geographic structure in mtDNA.

 

[Nutcracker]

BWP and HBW (print edition, 1992) use Aythya marila mariloides (Vigors, 1839) for the Pacific / N American subspecies; BWP adds that A. m. nearctica Stejneger, 1885 'American ... sometimes separated from mariloides ... recognition not warranted'.

No idea why IOC et al. don't accept the older name mariloides, if it is consubspecific with nearctica.

**Edit: I see the Banks paper points out mariloides is a synonym of Lesser Scaup A. affinis. Odd that HBW missed that, as it is 6 years later than Banks' paper. :t:

 

[Nutcracker]

Vigors' mariloides: details here.

 

[jmorlan]

Thanks, but my understanding of the main point of Bank's paper is that the name mariloides is invalid as it was originally applied to the Lesser Scaup.