Dictionary T-Z

This section is aimed at explaining the bird and biology specific vocabulary you are likely to meet in other threads in Birdforum.

This page is divided into four sections: Dictionary A-F, Dictionary G-L, Dictionary M-S and Dictionary T-Z.

T

Tarsus: see Legs and Feet

Taxon, taxa: a taxonomic unit (in principle any taxonomic unit), most often used for either a subspecies or a species. For example, when discussing Kaempfer's Woodpecker calling it "the taxon obrieni" does not make a statement as to whether Kaempfer's Woodpecker is a full species or a subspecies.

Tertials: see Wings

Tibia: see Legs and Feet

V

Vent: see General Anatomy

W

World-wide checklists: for purposes of taxonomy in the Opus, the baseline was the Sibley, CG and BL Monroe. 1996. Opus will change if there is a consensus between Clements and the Howard & Moore checklists. Two additional lists are worth mentioning: the Gill & Wright list started as an attempt to address differences in names world-wide, but also includes new taxonomic reports in a very fast format, while the BirdLife international list is published as a spreadsheet regularly, but with very little information of which kind of thoughts go into the taxonomic decisions, or on who constitutes the group behind the list.

References

Sibley, CG and BL Monroe. 1996. Birds of the World, on diskette, Windows version 2.0. Charles G. Sibley, Santa Rosa, CA, USA.

Clements, JF. 2008. The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World. 6th ed., with updates to December 2008. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0801445019.

Dickinson, EC, ed. 2003. The Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World. 3rd ed., with updates to October 2008 (Corrigenda 8). Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0691117010

Gill, F, M Wright and D Donsker. 2009. IOC World Bird Names (version 2.0). Available at http://www.worldbirdnames.org/.

Z

This page is divided into four sections: Dictionary A-F, Dictionary G-L, Dictionary M-S and Dictionary T-Z.