thomasdonegan
Former amateur ornithologist
I know I should get out more, but, according to Cory & Hellmayr, 1924, Catal. Birds Americas, III, p. 45, Diallactes Reichenbach, 1850, is a synonym of Taraba Lesson, 1830, with type Taraba major (Vieillot, 1816).
OK, rummaging around I now see Sclater (1890) subsequently made that designation of the type species, of this genus which was previously used for Taraba major and Myrmeciza melanoceps. Thanks. Maybe I should get out less?
how can Inundicola melanoceps (von Spix, 1825) (the type of Inundicola Isler et al., 2013) be the type of Hafferia Isler et al., 2013, of which the type if Hafferia immaculata (de La Fresnaye, 1845)? Or have Hafferia and Inundicola been merged already?
TIF website merges these two genera on the basis that: "The placeholder Myrmeciza3 is replaced by Hafferia (Isler et al. suggest a further split of two species into Inundicola)." and "7.The next group had previously been treated as Myrmeciza3 in lieu of a proper name. Well, Isler et al. (2013) gave it two names: Hafferia (Isler et al., type immaculata) and Inundicola (Bravo et al., type melanoceps). Priority goes to Hafferia. I'm not convinced there is so much difference as to justify two genera, so I'm putting them all in one genus."
In a 2012 paper, I had suggested even more widespread culling of genera in this sub-group: "White-bellied Antbird M. longipes, was not included in either of these [previous phylogenetic] studies, but it would be surprising if it grouped with immaculata, fortis, melanoceps and goeldii. If that is the case, another genus name will ultimately be needed for the group studied here. Merging these birds with the apparently related Black-headed
Antbird Percnostola rufifrons, the Pyriglena fire-eyes and / or Gymnocichla at generic level may be necessary based on data presented by Brumfield et al. (2007). Notably, ellisiana was originally described in Pyriglena by Sclater (1855) so such a treatment would not be novel. Moreover, M. goeldii shares the bright red eye of Pyriglena and Percnostola rufifrons (others in the clade possess red-brown or rufous to brownish irides) and all of the Pyriglena
/ Gymnocichla / Myrmeciza clade have fairly uniform black male and brownish female plumages, with some species having white interscapular patches and wing-covert fringes. Songs of Pyriglena and Gymnocichla are similarly structured to those of Myrmeciza, involving repeated notes at more or less the same frequency and with a similar note shape to zeledoni
and macrorhyncha (e.g., Fig. 5)."