• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Amazona parrots (1 Viewer)

Adam Dawid Urantowka , Kacper Hajduk , Barbara Kosowska, 2013. Complete mitochondrial genome of endangered Yellow-shouldered Amazon (Amazona barbadensis): Two control region copies in parrot species of the Amazona genus.
Abstract
 
Yellow-headed Amazon complex

Peter Kovalik said:
Adam Dawid Urantowka , Kacper Hajduk , Barbara Kosowska, 2013. Complete mitochondrial genome of endangered Yellow-shouldered Amazon (Amazona barbadensis): Two control region copies in parrot species of the Amazona genus. Abstract
Click to expand...
Urantówka, Mackiewicz & Strzała 2014. Phylogeny of Amazona barbadensis and the Yellow-Headed Amazon complex (Aves: Psittacidae): a new look at South American parrot evolution. PLoS ONE 9(5): e97228. [article] [pdf]
 
Last edited:
Interesting: another example where speciation within the Lesser Antilles gave rise to a form that wandered back into South America and there gave rise to further speciation.

Niels
 
TiF Update May 28:
Following IOC I have split Tres Marias Amazon, Amazona tresmariae from Yellow-headed Amazon, Amazona oratrix. Based on the available phylogenies, this implies that the Panama Amazon, Amazona panamensis should also be separated from Yellow-headed Amazon, Amazona oratrix. I have done so.
 
Anderson Vieira Chaves, R.O.P. Queiroz-Filho, Fabiano Augusto Assunção Silva, Cristina Yumi Miyaki, Fabrício Rodrigues dos Santos. An Online mtDNA Tool for Identification of Neotropical Psittacid Species and Taxonomic Issues: A Study Case of the Amazona ochrocephala Complex. Natural Resources, 2014, 5(11), 634-652.

PDF here

Our results indicate that none of the subspecies of the A. aestiva/A. ochrocephala complex from South America
(A. o. ochrocephala, A. o. natereri, A. o. xantholaema, A. a. aestiva, and A. a. xanthopteryx) formed reciprocally
monophyletic groups. Instead, A. aestiva was paraphyletic in relation to A. ochrocephala, as observed in
previous studies
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Is there any study that confirms that the previously recognized subspecies Amazona barbadensis canifrons of the Yellow-shouldered Amazon (from Aruba) is invalid? (cf Hume & Walters (2012) on the Aruba Amazon).
 
Red-spectacled & Tucumán Parrots

Rocha, Rivera, Martinez, Prestes & Caparroz 2014. Biogeography of speciation of two sister species of Neotropical Amazona (Aves, Psittaciformes) based on mitochondrial sequence data. PLoS ONE 9(9): e108096. [article] [pdf]

AOU-SACC:
34aa. Sibley & Monroe (1990) and Collar (1997) considered Amazona tucumana and A. pretrei to form a superspecies; they were considered conspecific by Peters (1937). Reports of sympatry in northeastern Argentina (Hornero 6: 535, 1936, as cited by Meyer de Schauensee 1966) are erroneous. Genetic data (Russello & Amato 2004) support their status as sister species...
Click to expand...
 
TiF Update May 28
Based on a combination of Rusello et al. (2004), Eberhard and Bermingham (2004), Ribas et al. (2007b), Caparroz et al. (2009), and Urantówka et al. (2014), Amazonian Yellow-headed Amazon, Amazona nattereri, has been split from Turquoise-fronted Amazon, Amazona aestiva.
 
Adam Dawid Urantowka, Aleksandra Kroczak, and Pawel Mackiewicz. Complete mitochondrial genome of the greater Antillean parrot Amazona ventralis (Hispaniolan amazon). Mitochondrial DNA Part B Vol. 1 , Iss. 1,2016.

[pdf]
 
dnsallen said:
Personally I don't think they should kill any if there are so few left. My question simply referred to the current rules.
Click to expand...
It's probably going to be controversial in some circles, but IMHO the requirements of the Code are fully met.


(The paper includes some mildly odd rephrasing of the Code wording, though. In particular (p.24 of the pdf):
Article 16.4.2 of the CODE will be met with the deposition in a secure collection of the extant, caged individuals from whom the feathers were removed upon their death. This complies with Article 16.4.2 of the CODE, which states that where the holotype is an extant individual, a statement of the intent to deposit the individual in a collection upon its death accompanied by a statement indicating the name and location of that collection is sufficient.
Click to expand...
Art.16.4 reads:
16.4. Species-group names: fixation of name-bearing types to be explicit. Every new specific and subspecific name published after 1999, except a new replacement name (a nomen novum), for which the name-bearing type of the nominal taxon it denotes is fixed automatically [Art. 72.7], must be accompanied in the original publication
16.4.1. by the explicit fixation of a holotype, or syntypes, for the nominal taxon [Arts. 72.2, 72.3, 73.1.1, 73.2 and Recs. 73A and 73C], and,
16.4.2. where the holotype or syntypes are extant specimens, by a statement of intent that they will be (or are) deposited in a collection and a statement indicating the name and location of that collection (see Recommendation 16C).​
Click to expand...
Thus:
  1. Art.16.4.2 says nothing about a statement of the intent to deposit the individual in a collection 'upon its death' being 'sufficient' in case that the holotype would be an 'extant individual' (where, presumably, extant = alive?). It says that such a statement is necessary if the holotype (or syntypes) is an extant specimen (where extant = not lost/destroyed). This statement is either sufficient (if the name-bearing type is extant), or not needed (if it's lost -- in this case nothing at all is required; not even a statement that the type is lost, in fact).
  2. Art.16.4.2 is met with the publication of the required statement of intent in the work; it will not be met at some unpredictable point in the future with the hypothetical deposition of a holotype in a designated collection. We cannot afford the possibility of a name becoming unavailable, perhaps after decades of use, due to the intended deposition becoming impossible for whatever reason.
  3. The required statement is only about the name-bearing type(s) (holotype or syntypes), hence only about the male caged individual in the present case. Paratypes (here, the female) serve no critical nomenclatural purpose and the Code requests nothing about them. Paratypes are never necessary to name an animal.
)
 
Last edited:
dnsallen said:
Many thanks, Laurent for the excellent clarification. Is it still fine if the parrots escape or are released?
Click to expand...
As far as nomenclature goes, this is entirely irrelevant -- once a name has been made available, it is available forever, even if the type is destroyed or lost.
Taxonomy may be another issue, though: some might decline to recognise the species because they think that its distinctness is not fully established; this may be more likely to happen if the type specimens are lost.
 
This new species is already being debated, as molecular differences to Amazona albifrons nana are only 0.1% and the morphological comparison to other taxa is based on too few individuals.

Furthermore the author of the article is a convicted parrot smuggler!
 
Not to open a big debate, and going slightly off topic, it's arguably better if types are alive for as long as possible after description. Of course there are lots of characters which are unavailable on death (and fewer and fewer which cannot be obtained from a live specimen)... In fact, the fact that museums are full of corpses is just an artefact of the reality that things don't live forever.

I suppose the lesson here ought to be that the first port of call for someone describing a new (vertebrate) should be the nearest zoo: but this would probably require a complete change in approach to taxonomy, as well as more cooperation between the mortuaries and the prisons. (why not just leave it in the wild? For me the answer is that there are too many things like skeletal measurements etc which are too difficult to get then; also an unacceptable increase in the risk that the type will eventually be lost when it expires [although you should see the state of some of the types in the mortuary where I work])
 
I don't see an issue with a living but captive (or well monitored) holotype. Although this is probably a poor test case as most folks I have talked with think this is just an odd White-fronted Amazon, and that the description is in general just insufficient to prove it as being a new species.
 
Warning! This thread is more than 6 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Similar threads

G
AOU-NACC Proposals 2024
2 3
Replies
42
Views
4K
l_raty
l_raty
J
Birding Asia Taxonomy
2
Replies
29
Views
3K
Andy Adcock
Andy Adcock
Peter Kovalik
AOU-NACC Proposals 2023
2
Replies
39
Views
7K
Mysticete
Mysticete
mb1848
ABA podcast with Peter Pyle
Replies
1
Views
1K
JustinJansen
JustinJansen
Peter Kovalik
AOU-NACC Proposals 2021
6 7 8
Replies
153
Views
20K
l_raty
l_raty

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Back
Top