Andy Adcock
Worst person on Birdforum
A new family monograph, due in November.
https://www.wildsounds.com/products/6054-Larks-of-the-World.shtml
https://www.wildsounds.com/products/6054-Larks-of-the-World.shtml
A new family monograph, due in November.
https://www.wildsounds.com/products/6054-Larks-of-the-World.shtml
Great to see Faansie Peacock as the artist, the plates should be fantastic, but I suspect November publication is optimistic. Curious as to what they will do with taxonomy, sure hope they split out the Horned Lark complex for starters
......….Six potential species listed on HBW below but only four seem to be supported in this paper.
https://avianhybrids.wordpress.com/...ks-how-many-species-of-horned-lark-are-there/
E. a. alpestris (Linnaeus, 1758) – American Horned Lark – E Canada (W Ontario E to Newfoundland and S to Nova Scotia) and E USA (E from Minnesota and S to Kansas and N Carolina); N populations winter in E USA.
E. a. strigata (Henshaw, 1884) – W & WC Canada and USA (British Columbia S to N California and E to Idaho, Nevada and Utah); N populations winter in W USA.
E. a. leucolaema Coues, 1874 – SW & SC Canada (S Alberta E to Manitoba) S to WC & SC USA (S to New Mexico E to Texas).
E. a. rubea (Henshaw, 1884) – NE & C California.
E. a. insularis (Dwight, 1890) – Channel Is, off SW California.
E. a. occidentalis (McCall, 1851) – SW USA (S California and SW Nevada E to C New Mexico) and NW Mexico (N Baja California and NW Sonora).
E. a. adusta (Dwight, 1890) – S Arizona E to S New Mexico S in Mexico to Durango and E to Coahuila.
E. a. enertera (Oberholser, 1907) – C Baja California.
E. a. giraudi (Henshaw, 1884) – coastal S USA (S Texas) S to NE Mexico.
E. a. chrysolaema (Wagler, 1831) – S Mexican Plateau from SE Coahuila and Zacatecas S to Jalisco, Michoacán, Morelos, Veracruz and NE Puebla; also C Oaxaca.
E. a. peregrina (P. L. Sclater, 1855) – E Andes of Colombia (Altiplano Cundiboyacense, N of Bogotá).
E. a. flava (J. F. Gmelin, 1789) – Shore Lark – N Eurasia E to NE Russia (Anadyrland), S to S Norway, L Baikal and NW Amurland; winters in W & C Europe E to Kazakhstan, Mongolia and C China.
E. a. brandti (Dresser, 1874) – Steppe Horned Lark – SE European Russia (lower R Volga) and N Transcaspia E to NE China (Inner Mongolia), S to N Turkmenistan, Tien Shan and Mongolia; N populations migrate S.
E. a. atlas (Whitaker, 1898) – Atlas Horned Lark – Morocco (Atlas Mts).
E. a. balcanica (Reichenow, 1895) – SE Europe (S Balkans and Greece).
E. a. kumerloevei Roselaar, 1995 – W & C Asia Minor.
E. a. penicillata (Gould, 1838) – Caucasian Horned Lark – E Turkey and Caucasus E to N & W Iran.
E. a. bicornis (C. L. Brehm, 1842) – Lebanon and N Israel–S Syria border (Mt Hermon).
E. a. albigula (Bonaparte, 1850) – SW Turkmenistan and NE Iran E to W Tien Shan and S to NW Pakistan.
E. a. argalea (Oberholser, 1902) – N Ladakh, extreme W China (W Kunlun Shan) and W Tibetan Plateau.
E. a. teleschowi (Przevalski, 1887) – C & E Kunlun Shan from S Xinjiang E to NW Qinghai and S to N Xizang (W China).
E. a. przewalskii (Bianchi, 1904) – Qaidam Basin, in N Qinghai.
E. a. nigrifrons (Przevalski, 1876) – mountains of NE Qinghai.
E. a. longirostris (F. Moore, 1856) – Himalayan Horned Lark – Himalayas from NE Pakistan and Kashmir E to Sikkim.
E. a. elwesi (Blanford, 1872) – S & E Tibetan Plateau.
E. a. khamensis (Bianchi, 1904) – SC China (SE Xizang, W Sichuan).
[cutting the subspp that HBW don't suggest splitting]
E. a. alpestris (Linnaeus, 1758) – American Horned Lark
E. a. flava (J. F. Gmelin, 1789) – Shore Lark
E. a. brandti (Dresser, 1874) – Steppe Horned Lark
E. a. atlas (Whitaker, 1898) – Atlas Horned Lark
E. a. penicillata (Gould, 1838) – Caucasian Horned Lark
E. a. longirostris (F. Moore, 1856) – Himalayan Horned Lark
I reckon Drovetski's 2014 setup is better - that has 6 Eremophila in total, same as HBW except for including brandti in flava as subspp of one species (makes sense as they're close in DNA), and of course bilopha (Temminck's) as the 6th.Actually the new paper proposes 3 spp. of horned lark plus temminck’s (i.e. 4 Eremophila in total)
Compared to the HBW list it lumps American, shore and steppe together (as “common horned”), plus atlas and Caucasian (as “mountain horned”)
decisions, decisions........................which way will they go?
' Sergei Drovetski and his colleagues proposed to divide the Horned Lark into six distinct species. Now, another study in the Journal of Ornithology – using new samples – took a closer look at the genus Eremophila. How many species did they recognize?'
or Fatemeh Ghorbani et al
'the researchers propose to treat the four lineages as distinct species:
Himalayan Horned Lark E. longirostris (comprising E. l. longirostris, E. l. deosaiensis, E. l. elwesi, E. l. khamensis, E. l. przewalskii, E. l. argalea, E. l. teleschowi, and E. l. nigrifrons) from the Himalayas and Qinghai–Tibetan plateau
Temminck’s Lark E. bilopha (monotypic), from North Africa to the Middle East
Mountain Horned Lark E. penicillata (E. p. penicillata, E. p. atlas, E. p. albigula, E. p. balcanica, and E. p. bicornis) from northwest Africa and southeast Europe/southwest Asia
Common Horned Lark E. alpestris sensu stricto (E. a. alpestris and many other American subspecies, E. a. flava, E. a. brandti) from the Northern Palearctic and North and northern South America
You only need a very small shift in your baseline for chosing species rank in the genus: if you take the red line, you get Ghorbani's four species; shift to the green line and you get six species, with splitting atlas from penicillata, and (flava + brandti) from alpestris. Any further move to split brandti from flava starts giving you problems with the need to split alpestris into two or more species in N America (which gets much more complicated!) - hence my being happy to live with (flava + brandti) as one species. The diagram below is from Dussex et al. 2020, creative commons licence, and is basically the same as Ghorbani's (which is copyright so I can't reproduce it here) except without the longirostris clade (outside of the box here, the oldest divergence in the genus) - red & green lines my addition.
(edit: larger pic)