Most actual taxonomy for psittaformes (1 Viewer)

Hello Bird enthausiast,

I am Rob Dekker and we are working on an extented book about Parrots and Parakeets. It will descibe about 300 species. It will be very nice, avialable this authum in Dutch and English.

The author is a bird breeder and judge and he did collect a whole lot of info on all the birds. Now we have some unsolved issues on the taxonomy of some birds.

There are serveral systems and they are quite contarary. Can the readers of this forum tell me what the most actual system of taxonomy is for psittaformes?

For example: On this website the Mallee Ringneck [Barnardius barnardi] Here is the link
is a specie, on ITIS, the Integrated Taxonomic Information System it is a subspecie of the Barnardius zonarius. The famous Parrots of the Wordt Lexicon calls it a specie and some call it the Platycercus barnardius.

So what is it?
Platycercus barnardius
Barnardius zonarius barnardi
Barnardius barnardi

Which system is our best guide?

Hi Rob - welcome to BirdForum! There are some users on here who can probably give you their opinions on it - having never birded anywhere near Australia, however, I'm not one of those users. I do know that many birders use, for their World Lists, Clements - whose list includes Mallee Ringneck as Barnardius barnardi, containing nominate barnardi, macgillivrayi, and whitei.

Hola Rob! A warm welcome to Birdforum from all the staff. I'm sure someone will answer your questions in short time.

Hello Rob,
And another welcome to the Birdforum. One place that has a great reference of the major "authorities" on taxonomy is AviBase

Here you can search checklists with any of a number of different taxonomy systems.

I would personally suggest you choose which system you want to follow (none are perfect and none are universally recognized). Clement's as mentioned above is a world list that the US organizations (AOU, ABA) as well as many others use.

Good luck,

Hi Rob,
As others have mentioned there is no univocity on the taxonomy of these birds. Personally, in this particular case, I would tend to agree more with the work of the Australian authorities, Schodde & Mason (1997), that have lumped the Mallee Ringneck and Port Lincoln Ringneck and have therefore:

Barnardius zonarius - AUSTRALIAN RINGNECK

B.z.macgillivrayi - NW Queensland to E Northern Territory
B.z.barnardi - Interior of SE Australia
B.z.semitorquatus - SW Western Australia
B.z.zonarius - WC and SC Western Australia to W and C South Australia

I have done some searching and think I want to follow avibase and clements. On the other hand: The last posts pointed me more in the direction of ITIS, the Integrated Taxonomic Information System.

I could also follow clements and make exceptions as cuckooroller suggested.

Would you, readers, prefer a strickt following of a system or choose for a individual aproach in such a book?

I'd probably prefer a book using one strict system, but mentioning any major controversies in the text of the appropriate species.