Richard Klim
-------------------------
Ferran Gil, Lynx Edicions, 30 May 2014...
Well done, James. Should be very useful!'Key to Scientific Names in Ornithology' by James A. Jobling
What does that mean? It's the question we've all asked ourselves with respect to some (or many!) of the scientific names that ornithologists throughout history have given to bird species within the system devised by Linnaeus. HBW Alive is now pleased to put in the hands of its users the ability to quickly learn the meaning and derivation of the Latin names of each and every one of the world's birds. James A. Jobling, a world authority on the subject since the publication in 1991 of his book A dictionary of scientific bird names, has given us the possibility of incorporating in HBW Alive an enormous amount of interesting information on this subject. Now all we need to do is put the cursor on each of the words that make up a scientific name–genus, species and subspecies–to immediately satisfy our curiosity.
Let's try this, for example, with the scientific name of the Budgerigar, Melopsittacus undulatus. It will definitely be easier to remember this name in the future if we know that Melopsittacus comes from the union of the two Greek words melos (μελος) and psittakos (ψιττακος) meaning, respectively, "song" and "parrot", while undulatus in Latin means "that which is furnished with wave-like markings." Or we can look at Puna Flamingo, Phoenicoparrus jamesi, whose name derives from the Greek phoenix (φοινιξ), "red", and Latin parra, used to designate a type of waterfowl, and where jamesi refers to the British naturalist and businessman Harry B. James, who lived in Chile.
This tool opens up a world of curious facts that will allow us to know even more about the birds of our interest.
This new product, the Key to Scientific Names in Ornithology, has been devised by James A. Jobling exclusively for HBW Alive and it's not intended to be published in paper. Many thanks to James for this important collaboration.