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Grey-breasted Wood Wren (1 Viewer)

It's probably just a transposition of Latin (anachoreta, -ae).

Laurent - I'm sure you are right.

Given that the future split up of this aggregate is likely to result in species with small ranges and subtle differences, I think that geographical descriptors are probably best, however dull the name "Santa Marta Wood Wren".

cheers, alan
 
Outram Bangs (1899) gave the etymology of the name he proposed, but didn't explain the reasons of his choice. However, I can see nothing in his text that suggests this choice was based on a behavioural or morphological peculiarity of the bird.
It might actually be interpretable as a kind of 'geographical descriptor', I think -- denoting the species that lives, in isolation from the rest of its kin, at the top of the mountain.
;)
 
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Just posted something here on the wrong thread by accident.

So whilst deleting may as well say:
Good thing this is finally split; and Santa Marta Wood-Wren sounds like a jolly good name to me.
 
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TiF Update July 8, 2016

The Santa Marta Wood-Wren, Henicorhina anachoreta, has been split from Gray-breasted Wood-Wren, Henicorhina leucophrys. See Caro et al. (2013) and SACC proposal #700. The Gray-breasted Wood-Wren complex is rather complicated and I think it is likely there will be future splits once the complex is better understood
[Troglodytidae, Certhioidea, 3.02]
 
Henicorhina leucophrys

Cadena C.D., Pérez-Emán, Cuervo A.M., Céspedes L.N., Epperly K.L. & Klicka J.T., 2018. Extreme genetic structure and dynamic range evolution in a montane passerine bird: implications for tropical diversification. bioRxiv

There
 
This paper reminds somewhat of Fjelsa & Krabbe 1990's Birds of the High Andes and Arctander & Fjeldsa 1994's subsequent study on Scytalopus. Back in the 1980s, there was a wide-randing Andean species called Scytalopus femoralis encapsulating many of today's species and by 1994 there were 24-26 species recognized (on a conservatively high basis, several of those undescribed) compared to today's 42.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-0348-8510-2_17

Eventually we will get used to there being lots of species of Grey-breasted Wood-Wrens on different mountain ranges or slopes or replacing one another at different elevations.

Some of these were known about already. The Mexican situation has been studied, to a certain extent, but not previously known to be so complicated. And for example, the apparently undescribed Colombian east slope species/subspecies was referred to in a paper including mensural data on it (Donegan & Salaman 2014 "Identification of Henicorhina Wood-Wrens in the San Lucas mountain range" Conservacion Colombiana 21 p. 38; uncited in this review). The same is listed in several editions of the Colombia checklist (since Salaman et al. 2008 Conservacion Colombiana 5: 59) and a field guide map (McMullan & Donegan 2014 p. 296). There's a nice series of what looks like an undescribed population from Peru in the BMNH which has been set aside separately since I recurated the wood-wrens in the early 2000s. Determining the limits of these populations' ranges has been mired with difficulty and has complicated any subspecies descriptions being taken forwards seriously, given their morphological similarities and the odd distributional patterns tentatively observed. It's fascinating to see so many other new populations being distinct and awaiting a name or splitting, such as in Merida and the northern Central Andes. Amazingly, whilst sampling density is great in this study, there is at least one other apparently morphologically distinctive population in Colombia omitted from the geographical sampling, so if anything the authors may even underestimate diversity!

It will be interesting to see if these authors or others will now be able to match up their mtDNA results to Linnaean taxonomy and find a good way of measuring vocal differentiation, given the high variability of songs within populations.
 
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Pretty fascinating paper. Of course only mtDNA but still there is a lot of believable / sensical structure recovered.

However, one sort of head-scratcher result for me, where boliviana is sister to a form from coastal Venezuela, seems like it slotted into an odd spot there. And if birds in Cen Bolivia are different from the nominate, where would the biogeographical break be?

Also wrapping my head around what the biogeographic barriers would be / where exactly the proposed divisions occur between tamae and leucophrys in Colombia's Cordillera Oriental, between bruneiceps, hilaris, and leucophrys in Colombia's Cordillera Occidental, and between hilaris and leucophrys as you continue down the W Slope in Ecuador.
 
Carlos Daniel Cadena, Jorge L Pérez-emán, Andrés M Cuervo, Laura N Céspedes, Kevin L Epperly, John T Klicka; Extreme genetic structure and dynamic range evolution in a montane passerine bird: implications for tropical diversification, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, , bly207, https://doi.org/10.1093/biolinnean/bly207

Abstract:

Phylogeographical analyses provide information about the role of evolutionary processes underlying species diversity of the Neotropical montains. We used mitochondrial DNA sequence data for the Henicorhina leucophrys complex (Aves: Troglodytidae) from Mexico to Bolivia to describe population structure, infer relationships and divergence times among populations, examine lineage accumulation through time, assess cryptic diversity and explore the origin of elevational and latitudinal replacements of species. The complex comprises numerous lineages, reaching > 12% sequence divergence; most distinct populations are separated by geographical barriers, but several co-occur with elevational segregation or replace each other along the Andes. Some close relatives are separated by vast distances, with more distant relatives occupying intervening areas. The complex is likely to have originated in Mexico and expanded over South America while diversifying constantly into lineages persisting for millions of years. We do not propose taxonomic changes, but H. leucophrys is an outlier among birds in lineage diversity, with > 35 presumptive species identified by coalescent methods. Our work illustrates how diversity accumulates via divergence and persistence in allopatry, achievement of secondary sympatry, and coexistence mediated by ecological divergence. Phases of expansion and contraction of ranges and localized extinctions are likely to account for phylogeographical patterns preceeding speciation and the accumulation of diversity.
 
For those who want to be ahead of the game and enter the maelstrom of Henicorhina leucophrys may I suggest a few English names? My sources include Hellmayr 1934, Cat. Birds Americas VII, pp. 262-271.
Henicorhina leucophrys (von Tschudi 1844) White-browed Wood Wren
H. minuscula Phillips 1966 Sierra Wood Wren
H. festiva Nelson 1903 Festive Wood Wren
H. mexicana Nelson 1897 Aztec Wood Wren
H. castanea Ridgway 1903 Chestnut Wood Wren
H. capitalis Nelson 1897 Grey-crowned Wood Wren
H. collina Bangs 1902 Chiriquí Wood Wren
H. anachoreta Bangs 1899 Hermit Wood Wren
H. bangsi Ridgway 1903 Pale-throated Wood Wren
H. manastarae Avelado & Ginés 1952 Perijá Wood Wren
H. sanluisensis Phelps & Phelps Jr 1959 Falcón Wood Wren
H. venezuelensis Hellmayr 1903 Bucarito Wood Wren
H. meridana Todd 1932 Mérida Wood Wren
H. tamae Zimmer & Phelps 1946 Táchira Wood Wren
H. brunneiceps Chapman 1914 Brown-capped Wood Wren
H. hilaris von Berlepsch & Taczanowski 1884 Jolly Wood Wren
H. boliviana Todd 1932 Inca Wood Wren
 
For those who want to be ahead of the game and enter the maelstrom of Henicorhina leucophrys may I suggest a few English names? My sources include Hellmayr 1934, Cat. Birds Americas VII, pp. 262-271.
Henicorhina leucophrys (von Tschudi 1844) White-browed Wood Wren
H. minuscula Phillips 1966 Sierra Wood Wren
H. festiva Nelson 1903 Festive Wood Wren
H. mexicana Nelson 1897 Aztec Wood Wren
H. castanea Ridgway 1903 Chestnut Wood Wren
H. capitalis Nelson 1897 Grey-crowned Wood Wren
H. collina Bangs 1902 Chiriquí Wood Wren
H. anachoreta Bangs 1899 Hermit Wood Wren
H. bangsi Ridgway 1903 Pale-throated Wood Wren
H. manastarae Avelado & Ginés 1952 Perijá Wood Wren
H. sanluisensis Phelps & Phelps Jr 1959 Falcón Wood Wren
H. venezuelensis Hellmayr 1903 Bucarito Wood Wren
H. meridana Todd 1932 Mérida Wood Wren
H. tamae Zimmer & Phelps 1946 Táchira Wood Wren
H. brunneiceps Chapman 1914 Brown-capped Wood Wren
H. hilaris von Berlepsch & Taczanowski 1884 Jolly Wood Wren
H. boliviana Todd 1932 Inca Wood Wren

Are you sure of these split?
 
Based on ">35 presumptive species identified by coalescent methods" my splitting seems quite modest. Only 17 or 18 subspecies are currently listed, so some troglodytophile should be quite busy in the future.
 
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