Hi André,
I understand where you're coming. However, this is just one of several more recent Asian species that that we don't recognise. The situation in Asia has changed rapidly over the last four years and from about mid 2006 there have been some major shake-ups in this part of the world and the lists have fallen shockingly far behind. A prime example is the revision of Timaliidae. There has been much splitting and lumping going on since 2004/2005 but things have settled down and a pretty clear picture exists of what has been accepted. With the lists being so far behind, early last year, the
IUCN and BirdLife had to sit down and decide what they considered a valid species, add them to their database and act on those for conservation purposes.
My point is that if Opus falls behind in what it recognises to the point that it doesn't reflect the generally accepted conservative situation on the ground, then, Opus works against itself as a source of information. I'm not for one moment saying include every split and lump. But when a situation develops like we have in the Orient at present when there have been some major shake-ups and a situation has developed where the IUCN and Birdlife have had to update their lists with the likes of
Sibley & Monroe with changes and the new regional field guides are saying
Howard & Moore with changes, then, if we stick rigidly to only recognising a split with our
two out of three requirement and totally ignore the reality on the ground and create the situation of being even further back than the conservatives are, then, we run the risk of our info being redundant. I'll use Taiwan as an example but this would be true for many other countries like Vietnam, China, and the Philippines.
At present Opus only recognises 15 of Taiwan's endemics. The IUCN/BirdLife recognise 21, which is pretty much what most conservative researchers etc recognise now. The East Asia guide, the OBC, the Gill & Wright and many researchers recognise 24 and list about another 6 likely full species. The debate at present seems largely focused on the difference between these two totals. If we are still stuck on 15 and not even near what the conservatives are recognising at around 20-21 endemics, then, our info has largely become redundant for those species concerned. Species like the Taiwan Hwamei
Garrulax taewanus, Chinese Barbet
Megalaima faber, and Taiwan Barbet
Megalaima nuchalis have really been generally accepted as full species for quite sometime and really should appear as full species if we want Opus to be a credible source of info for birds in the Orient. When we have a situation where the lists are so far behind what's recognised on the ground and the likes of the IUCN/BirdLife have had to make changes with clauses like
Sibley & Monroe with changes to their database we may want to consider using their database as a possible guideline source if needed for some species in the interests of our info on the species not becoming redundant.
