Moluccan Starling (Aplonis mysolensis)

Fabulous Image Of This Beautiful Looking Starling Joe, Lovely Work Well Done Tfs!!!!!!!!!!
All The Best
Sue & Simon,
Great Info !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great shot of this lovely starling Joseph, TFS!

Excellent Joe!!!

I've now had a chance to amend and update the Taxonomy section in the Opus. The Clement's ref hadn't been updated since 2009!

Thanks lad; a cracking picture.

delia todd said:

I've now had a chance to amend and update the Taxonomy section in the Opus. The Clement's ref hadn't been updated since 2009!

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Hi Delia,
Thanks. I looked at that but opted not to discuss the local subspecies based on this from HBW online.

"Geographical variation trivial; birds from Banggai Is described as race persimilis, those from Sula Is as sulaensis, and those from Halmahera as forsteni, but all considered not reliably separable from birds of this species elsewhere in range. Treated as monotypic." They then go and list the two subspecies from Clements in contradiction to what they just said. Furthermore the IOC checklist says, "Includes sulaensis; treat as monotypic (Craig & Feare 2009; Beehler & Pratt 2016; Eaton et al. 2016)."

When dealing with subspecies I always try to describe what characterizes their differences and could not do so here.

jmorlan said:

"Includes sulaensis; treat as monotypic (Craig & Feare 2009; Beehler & Pratt 2016; Eaton et al. 2016)."

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This could be read as "treat sulaensis as monotypic", or do they mean that... or the species? I feel that's poorly written really.

I puzzled over it for ages in the thread. Before seeing this on here as well.

delia todd said:

This could be read as "treat sulaensis as monotypic", or do they mean that... or the species? I feel that's poorly written really.

I puzzled over it for ages in the thread. Before seeing this on here as well.

Click to expand...

They do not list any subspecies under "Aplonis mysolensis" which makes it pretty clear that they consider Moluccan Starling to be monotypic.

The Clements checklist has different editors from the HBW online species account authors and they sometimes come to different conclusions. I've seen this happen before. So the editors write what they think, and then they list the subspecies recognized by Clements even when the two contradict each other.

jmorlan said:

They do not list any subspecies under "Aplonis mysolensis" which makes it pretty clear that they consider Moluccan Starling to be monotypic.

The Clements checklist has different editors from the HBW online species account authors and they sometimes come to different conclusions. I've seen this happen before. So the editors write what they think, and then they list the subspecies recognized by Clements even when the two contradict each other.

Click to expand...

Sorry Joe, I think I maybe was overthinking it... and got muddled with all the subspecies names being tossed around.

Seems I should maybe put "Monotypic" back in the article with a statement.

delia todd said:

Seems I should maybe put "Monotypic" back in the article with a statement.

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Thanks. Last night I changed it saying Clements recognizes two subspecies as listed but IOC considers it monotypic. Fair enough?