Troublesome Birds- Nomenclature Anarchy Edition (1 Viewer)

I've just had a tour through Category:Birds resolving the various entries of the form "Golden-winged or Bar-breasted Piculet" to settle on one name for ease of searching and use in location entries. (Objective being that no future user has to guess "Eurasian or European Golden Plover" or "European or Eurasian Golden Plover"? when trying to link to something...)

Niels and Rasmus agreed in this thread on a standard for resolving taxonomic tangles: build on any consensus acheivable among Howard and Moore, Clements, and Gill and Wright.

That resolved 95% of the troublesome cases. Avian nomenclature being the contentious business that it is, there remain a handful of cases with no clear solution that I would like to present for resolution.

Otus pauliani
Opus: Grand Comoro or Karthala Scops Owl
Clements: Comoro Scops-Owl
Howard and Moore: Grand Comoro Scops Owl
Gill and Wright: Karthala Scops Owl

Rhinomyias addita
Opus:Streaky-breasted Jungle Flycatcher
Clements: Buru Jungle Flycatcher
Howard and Moore: Streaky-breasted Jungle Flycatcher
Gill and Wright: Streak-breasted Jungle Flycatcher

Procellaria parkinsoni
Opus:Parkinson's or Black Petrel
Clements: Parkinson's Petrel
Howard and Moore: Parkinson's/Black Petrel
Gill and Wright: Black Petrel

Eurostopodus diabolicus
Opus:Diabolical or Satanic Eared Nightjar
Clements: Diabolical Nightjar
Howard and Moore: Heinrich's Nightjar
Gill and Wright: Satanic Nightjar
(Satanic Eared Nightjar from Sibley and Monroe.)

Megapodius pritchardii
Opus:Polynesian or Niaufoou Scrubfowl
Clements: Niaufoou Scrubfowl
Howard and Moore: Polynesian Megapode
Gill and Wright: Tongan Megapode
(Polynesian Scrubfowl from Handbook of the Birds of the World.)

Oenanthe xanthoprymna
Opus:Rufous-tailed or Kurdish Wheatear
Clements: Red-tailed Wheatear
Howard and Moore: Red-rumped Wheatear
Gill and Wright: Kurdistan Wheatear
(Rufous-tailed from Sibley and Monroe. The Collins guide proposes "Persian Wheatear.")

jthoppes said:

I've just had a tour through Category:Birds resolving the various entries of the form "Golden-winged or Bar-breasted Piculet" to settle on one name for ease of searching and use in location entries. (Objective being that no future user has to guess "Eurasian or European Golden Plover" or "European or Eurasian Golden Plover"? when trying to link to something...)

Niels and Rasmus agreed in this thread on a standard for resolving taxonomic tangles: build on any consensus acheivable among Howard and Moore, Clements, and Gill and Wright.

That resolved 95% of the troublesome cases. Avian nomenclature being the contentious business that it is, there remain a handful of cases with no clear solution that I would like to present for resolution.

Otus pauliani
Opus: Grand Comoro or Karthala Scops Owl
Clements: Comoro Scops-Owl
Howard and Moore: Grand Comoro Scops Owl
Gill and Wright: Karthala Scops Owl

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I think having Comoro being part of the name is more of a consensus than using Karthala (which seems to be the name of the largest vulcano on Grand Comoro Island). I would lean towards the form including Grand: Grand Comoro Scops Owl because I have heard much critique of Clements latest edition, and we therefore sometime in the future may go towards using H&M as the authority that Opus is following. Finally, it seems that a majority of our entries for Scops Owls are without a hyphen. They probably all should be.

Rhinomyias addita
Opus:Streaky-breasted Jungle Flycatcher
Clements: Buru Jungle Flycatcher
Howard and Moore: Streaky-breasted Jungle Flycatcher
Gill and Wright: Streak-breasted Jungle Flycatcher

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It seems that handbook of birds of the world also uses the Streaky-breasted, as did Sibley & Monroe. Lets stay with that even if it may be grammatically iffy.

Procellaria parkinsoni
Opus:Parkinson's or Black Petrel
Clements: Parkinson's Petrel
Howard and Moore: Parkinson's/Black Petrel
Gill and Wright: Black Petrel

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This really is a call by whoever does the editing. Rasmus said to go with Gill & Wright unless it differs from both of the other authorities, and H&M at least includes Black Petrel as a possible name, so that would be my call.

Eurostopodus diabolicus
Opus:Diabolical or Satanic Eared Nightjar
Clements: Diabolical Nightjar
Howard and Moore: Heinrich's Nightjar
Gill and Wright: Satanic Nightjar
(Satanic Eared Nightjar from Sibley and Monroe.)

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The conservative thing here would be to stay close to the existing name (which for Sibley and Monroe was Satanic Eared N) and therefore go with Satanic. If you ask me tomorrow the answer might be different, because this one really is a judgment call.

Megapodius pritchardii
Opus:Polynesian or Niaufoou Scrubfowl
Clements: Niaufoou Scrubfowl
Howard and Moore: Polynesian Megapode
Gill and Wright: Tongan Megapode
(Polynesian Scrubfowl from Handbook of the Birds of the World.)

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Sibley & Monroe used to have Niaufoou Scrubfowl, So I would probably choose that one (at least that name came from two sources).

Oenanthe xanthoprymna
Opus:Rufous-tailed or Kurdish Wheatear
Clements: Red-tailed Wheatear
Howard and Moore: Red-rumped Wheatear
Gill and Wright: Kurdistan Wheatear
(Rufous-tailed from Sibley and Monroe. The Collins guide proposes "Persian Wheatear.")

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This is one that is somewhat more difficult because it involves a proposed split of Red-tailed Wheatear (or Rufous-T W) to Kurdish and Afghan W. The split is not currently recognized by Clements or Opus, and given that it is not uniformly accepted, we should not change that now. Therefore, it is my recommendation to stay with Rufous-tailed, to make redirects from Red-tailed W, Kurdish W, Kurdistan W, and Afghan W, but not from Red-rumped W, as both Clements and Opus uses that name for another species of Wheatear. The entry should then be edited to try to clarify the taxonomic status of what is included here.

Cheers
Niels

njlarsen said:

Sibley & Monroe used to have Niaufoou Scrubfowl, So I would probably choose that one (at least that name came from two sources).

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I agree – this is the only island where the bird (still) occurs naturally, so Niaufoou (or better: Niaufo‘ou) it should be, although it's difficult to remember. Polynesian would seem to mean it occurs widely...
That wheatear is probably the worst example of what happens when everyone thinks of new names without consulting anyone else (I've also seen Western and Eastern Red-tailed Wheatear)!

Thanks for the input. I've sorted the jungle flycatcher, scrubfowl, and scops owl.

On Polynesian glottal stops: I didn't add this to the scrubfowl page, because consistent treatment of these things will require adding dozens of them to various Hawaiian bird pages (for example, Bishop's Oo).

I'll try to enforce consistent hyphenation where possible.

I think I've sorted the rest of these according to the recommendations above. It would be nice if an expert took a look at the section on wheatear taxonomy...

jthoppes said:

I think I've sorted the rest of these according to the recommendations above. It would be nice if an expert took a look at the section on wheatear taxonomy...

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Looks good enough for me

Niels

Could you have a look at Colaptes campestris and Nyctibius griseus, too? I have changed their name some time afo respectively from Field or Campo Flicker to Campo Flicker and Common or Grey Potoo to Common Potoo. I don't know if they are correct based on these "rules".

jocateme said:

Could you have a look at Colaptes campestris and Nyctibius griseus, too?

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These two look fine to me.

The first one looks great. It would be better if the second one had an "Also Known As" statement included, so it was a little more clear why Grey Potoo ended up there. If you know the background and could add something on a seemingly confusing amount of splits that has happened in the taxonomy section, that much the better.

Cheers
Niels