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'Margelanic' Lesser Whitethroat

Perusing Joe Hobbs' Sylvia ref list made me wonder again about the curious vernacular name 'Margelanic Lesser Whitethroat' used by Shirihai at al 2001 (obviously derived from the scientific name, S [curruca] margelanica), and subsequently abbreviated to 'Margelanic Whitethroat' by Clements, and IOC (proposed splits).

It brings to mind the widely-used 'Magellanic', but it's uncommon in English to use an adjectival '-ic' suffix with a city name. [When discussing the use of geographical nouns versus adjectives in English names for birds, Gill & Wright 2006 notes that an in-depth review of existing names revealed that cities have always been spelled as nouns.]

And Margilan (Fergana Province, Uzbekistan), the type locality, isn't even within the breeding range of margelanica anyway, according to Shirihai et al 2001 and Aymí & Gargallo 2006 (HBW 11) - although of course there are many other examples of species named after locations outside their breeding range.
ibc.lynxeds.com/species/small-whitethroat-sylvia-minula
 
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:h?:
Perusing Joe Hobbs' Sylvia ref list made me wonder again about the curious vernacular name 'Margelanic Lesser Whitethroat' used by Shirihai at al 2001 (obviously derived from the scientific name, S [curruca] margelanica), and subsequently abbreviated to 'Margelanic Whitethroat' by Clements, and IOC (proposed splits).

It brings to mind the widely-used 'Magellanic', but it's uncommon in English to use an adjectival '-ic' suffix with a city name. [When discussing the use of geographical nouns versus adjectives in English names for birds, Gill & Wright 2006 notes that an in-depth review of existing names revealed that cities have always been spelled as nouns.]

And Margilan (Fergana Province, Uzbekistan), the type locality, isn't even within the breeding range of margelanica anyway, according to Shirihai et al 2001 and Aymí & Gargallo 2006 (HBW 11) - although of course there are many other examples of species named after locations outside their breeding range.
ibc.lynxeds.com/species/small-whitethroat-sylvia-minula

Richard,
Has anything formal yet been published for the erection of this taxon to species level?
MJB
 
Margelanic Lesser Whitethroat

Has anything formal yet been published for the erection of this taxon to species level?
Mike, I'm not aware of anything peer-reviewed - just Shirihai et al 2001 (which treats curruca, margelanica, minula and althaea as allospecies).
 
Mike, I'm not aware of anything peer-reviewed - just Shirihai et al 2001 (which treats curruca, margelanica, minula and althaea as allospecies).

Richard,
Thanks for the quick reply. I would think that most of Hadoram's conclusions in similar cases would be robust, but it would be nice if he could take time out to catch up with the backlog!
MJB
 
...the curious vernacular name 'Margelanic Lesser Whitethroat.

Richard you are not saying the scientific name is wrong only the vernacular common name?

In Oiseaux de la Ferghana by Stolzmann, the original description in an article starting on,
Page 54:
http://books.google.com/books?id=XDAYAAAAYAAJ&dq=Sylvia+margelanica&source=gbs_navlinks_s .

He spells the city’s name Marguelane. Not sure that makes a difference from Margilan. Stolzmann does say that the two skins from Margilan, one in May and one in April , “It is possible that these two birds belong to an unknown form, which migrated to the Ferghana accidentally (from) some unexplored country”.

The city name comes from a time when Alexander the Great went through this area and was the local term for Bread & Chicken.

Grammatically, there are two kinds of commemorative epithets, substantival and adjectival.
An adjectival commemorative epithet is a noun converted to an adjective by the addition of a suffix, which is inflected in accordance with the gender of the generic name but is not affected by the sex or number of the person(s) being commemorated.
ii) "-icus" or "-ica" is a Latin suffix denoting belonging to or pertaining to; e.g., Rana sylvatica is a frog pertaining to the forest (sylva = Latin for forest), or "wood frog".

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-icus .

A species-series nomen must be ‘‘a word of two or more letters, or a compound word’’, and be, or be treated as, either an adjective or a participle in the nominative singular agreeing in grammatical gender with the generic nomen, a noun in the nominative singular standing in apposition to the generic nomen, or a noun or an adjective in the genitive case (Art. 11.9).

In Latham’s Index Ornithologicus, Sive Systema Ornithologiae he has the Megellanic Penguin “habitat terra Megellanica Statuum”, this is Latin for Magellan Straights. And Forster called it Aptenodytes megellanica. So it not named for Magellan but for the geographical area the Straights of Magellan. There was an Old Margilan and a New Margilan in Stolczmann’s time so he may of used –ica for pertaining to the Margilan area? AS for the englishizing of Latin to megellanic or Margilanic who knows.??
 
Margelanic Lesser Whitethroat

...the curious vernacular name 'Margelanic Lesser Whitethroat.
Richard you are not saying the scientific name is wrong only the vernacular common name?
That's right, Mark. I was only referring to the vernacular name.

I just think that the English name should be simply 'Margilan (Lesser) Whitethroat' - as in Sylvia undata Dartford (not Dartfordic) Warbler.

A quick Google suggests that the word 'Margelanic' is completely unknown/unused in English except in the context of the whitethroat (but I'll probably be proved wrong ;)), and is probably meaningless to most birders.
 
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A quick Google suggests that the word 'Margelanic' is completely unknown/unused in English except in the context of the whitethroat and is probably meaningless to most birders.

Richard,
If, perish the thought, we were to expound the theme of what is 'meaningless to most birders', it might need more than just a thread of its own!
MJB
PS I agree with your conclusions - the invention of such words often derives from a lack of knowledge of the English language, something that is sadly fairly common amongst people whose first language is English...
 
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