Tinamidae (2 Viewers)

[andrew147]

Would be fine by me. Or just merge N. cinerascens into Rhynchotus. Sounds more sensible to me, than to create a new genus for that one species.

That's what I've done on my list - and I've made Nothura a monospecific genus for boraquira and moved the other nothuras to Taoniscus.

I agree with Jimmy that more genera would be desirable, and cinerascens has always been thought of as singular - the only lowland member of an otherwise montane group.

However, the worst problem is Crypturellus which contains 6+ lineages of over 20 million years old. There are names available for just 3 of them, as far as I can tell, though these may correspond to the three main lineages (placement of thicket/pale-browed group ambiguous).

 

[Mysticete]

For a new genus I suggest Burmeisteria because he named the sole species? And they are taking all of the English names away from dead white guys.

That's only been a movement really about common names.

 

[Mysticete]

Or, considering the age of many tinamou lineages and the small number of genera always used, cinerascens could be included in Rhynchotus and all Nothura except boraquira could be included in Taoniscus.

The recognition of two tinamou families would also be good - the two main group (forest/open country) are always shown to have separated around 40 million years ago.

Although the main problem in making a call on this is that there are no other living paleognath clades with more than one family, unless you want to go back and split apart Emus and Cassowaries. So there is not really a good within paleognaths calibration point for family level differences.

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

Burmeisteria

No, clearly no ! For an obviously reason 😏

I guess Prorhynchotus for cinerascens et Nothurella for the remaining 'Nothura'

 

[l_raty]

However, the worst problem is Crypturellus which contains 6+ lineages of over 20 million years old. There are names available for just 3 of them, as far as I can tell, though these may correspond to the three main lineages (placement of thicket/pale-browed group ambiguous).

There is also a significant nomenclatural problem here.

When Hermann's names were unearthed, it was assumed that the status of his Tinamus as a latinization of Buffon's "tinamou" made all the taxonomic species included by Buffon in the latter eligible to be the type, which allowed to continue the name for the group including T. major, as it had been used until that point (attributed to Latham).
Under the ICZN, the only species eligible to be the type of a genus are those cited by an available species-group name in the OD.
The only species cited by name by Hermann as included in his Tinamus is Tinamus soui Hermann.... which is thus automatically the type by monotypy. This species is currently in Crypturellus.

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

The only species cited by name by Hermann as included in his Tinamus is Tinamus soui Hermann.... which is thus automatically the type by monotypy. This species is currently in Crypturellus.

What can be done in this case?

 

[mb1848]

Richmond in Auk 1900 says:
Crypturus pileatus (Bodd. Dec. 1783, or later) is antedated (without

doubt) by Tinamus soui Hermann, Tabula Affin. Anim., 1783, 164, 235,

and the species will thus become Crypturus soui (Hermann). — Charles

W. Richmond, Wasliitigtou, D.C. . So he did not feel to change the genus?
v.17 (1900) - The Auk - Biodiversity Heritage Library .
Stresemann. v. 27 (1920) - Novitates zoologicae - Biodiversity Heritage Library .

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

Richmond in Auk 1900 says:
Crypturus pileatus (Bodd. Dec. 1783, or later) is antedated (without

doubt) by Tinamus soui Hermann, Tabula Affin. Anim., 1783, 164, 235,

and the species will thus become Crypturus soui (Hermann). — Charles

W. Richmond, Wasliitigtou, D.C. . So he did not feel to change the genus?
v.17 (1900) - The Auk - Biodiversity Heritage Library .
Stresemann. v. 27 (1920) - Novitates zoologicae - Biodiversity Heritage Library .

It doesn't say what action is needed to stabilize the type species fixation.

Because, if Tinamus soui is the real type species (I don't think because it would create a real instability), Crypturus would automatically become a synonym of Tinamus.

 

[mb1848]

Hermann talks about Tinamus on page 164 mentioning Shaw and Buffon?
"on I see what hinders, by whom

minus & Latin tinge this name Tinamus for denoting love

to be received by the rican family of birds. To build his chara&erem and ner-

to describe the vofe, and to place in fuo order the first kind, others who ipfe
He sees that I am leaving. Buffon."
Tabula affinitatum animalium olim academico specimine edita - Biodiversity Heritage Library .
And Hermann has Tinamus in a chart.
Tabula affinitatum animalium olim academico specimine edita - Biodiversity Heritage Library .
That is much clearer!
Mathews in Birds of Australia dated Boddaert preface as December 1, 1783 and says Hermann is prior to December 1783? Suppl.4-5 (1925) - The Birds of Australia - Biodiversity Heritage Library . Page 10 and 66

 

[James Jobling]

Hi Mark,
A more fluid translation of Hermann would read, “I do not see what prevents this, much less the Latin name Tinamus, being accepted as designating an American genus of birds. To compose and describe its character, and to place it in the correct order, I leave to others who have seen it.”

I always use Google Translate to gain an insight into foreign language texts.

 

[mb1848]

...what action is needed to stabilize the type species fixation?
It may have occured in 1785 by Boddaert. There is an Ernest Wickersheimer article in Janus : revue internationale de l'histoire des sciences, v. XLIX (Amsterdam) from 1960 called Pieter Boddaert critique Tabula affinitative animalium de Jean Hermann?

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

Have any of you members ever observed tinamous genera Nothoprocta and Rhynchotus & Nothura and Taoniscus to find out if there are significant differences between these genera or if they share common characteristics that would justify placing Nothoprocta in Rhynchotus and Taoniscus in Nothura, or if, on the contrary, they should be separated into different genera?

 

[Xenospiza]

Have any of you members ever observed tinamous genera Nothoprocta and Rhynchotus & Nothura and Taoniscus to find out if there are significant differences between these genera or if they share common characteristics that would justify placing Nothoprocta in Rhynchotus and Taoniscus in Nothura, or if, on the contrary, they should be separated into different genera?

I haven't seen many tinamous, let alone grassland tinamous. I've heard that Taoniscus is virtually impossible to see – even our excellent guide in Brazil started laughing when asked about seeing it... Its call is not dissimilar to the Brazilain Nothura species (the Andean/Patagonian Darwin's Nothura sounds quite different).
Nothoprocta and Rhynchotus look really similar, and (Andean) R. maculicollis sounds close to the Andean Nothoprocta species. Interestingly, the lowland species of both genera sound a bit more divergent.
Unless all these species have been checked, I would not make changes to the current arrangement.

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

I haven't seen many tinamous, let alone grassland tinamous. I've heard that Taoniscus is virtually impossible to see – even our excellent guide in Brazil started laughing when asked about seeing it... Its call is not dissimilar to the Brazilain Nothura species (the Andean/Patagonian Darwin's Nothura sounds quite different).
Nothoprocta and Rhynchotus look really similar, and (Andean) R. maculicollis sounds close to the Andean Nothoprocta species. Interestingly, the lowland species of both genera sound a bit more divergent.
Unless all these species have been checked, I would not make changes to the current arrangement.

Are you not aware about the last Tinamidae phylogeny ?

 

[Xenospiza]

Are you not aware about the last Tinamidae phylogeny ?

I should have looked back to the previous page...
When Crypturellus is one genus, then lumping the two genus pairs makes sense.
But I would not be against a separate genus for N. boraquira to hold on to Taoniscus.

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

I should have looked back to the previous page...
When Crypturellus is one genus, then lumping the two genus pairs makes sense.
But I would not be against a separate genus for N. boraquira to hold on to Taoniscus.

Boraquira is the type species of Nothura

 

[l_raty]

But I would not be against a separate genus for N. boraquira to hold on to Taoniscus.

I would be seriously hesitant to make a change based on a node with support "0.99/69/--".

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

"0.99/69/--".

For the uninitiated, it's gibberish

That said, Lista Ptakow just placed all Nothoprocta in Rhynchotus and Taoniscus nanus in Nothura

 

[l_raty]

For the uninitiated, it's gibberish

"0.99/69/--" is the support given to the node which unites Taoniscus to Nothura spp to the exclusion of N. boraquira in the tree.
The first figure, "0.99", is the support given to this node by Bayesian analysis; as a rule of thumb, Bayesian supports start to be OK when they are above 0.95 : 0.99 is pretty good. The second figure, "69", is the bootstrap support given to this node by maximum likelihood analysis; as a rule of thumb, bootstrap supports start to be OK when they are above 70 : 69 is a bit low to be confident about the result. The third "figure", "--", is the "support" given to this node by maximum parsimony analysis; "--" means that the MP analysis did not recover this node at all.
Note also that Taoniscus was only represented by mtDNA (cytb and nd2) in the data set.
With such mixed support and such a data set, I would not want to bet a lot of money on the paraphyly of Nothura -- for instance, it wouldn't really surprise me if adding some nuclear material for Taoniscus resulted in it becoming sister to Nothura, instead of nested in it.

That said, the (Nothura + Taoniscus) clade, on the other hand, is fairly well supported, so that it seems unlikely that adding molecular data would invalidate a broader Nothura.

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

"0.99/69/--" is the support given to the node which unites Taoniscus to Nothura spp to the exclusion of N. boraquira in the tree.
The first figure, "0.99", is the support given to this node by Bayesian analysis; as a rule of thumb, Bayesian supports start to be OK when they are above 0.95 : 0.99 is pretty good. The second figure, "69", is the bootstrap support given to this node by maximum likelihood analysis; as a rule of thumb, bootstrap supports start to be OK when they are above 70 : 69 is a bit low to be confident about the result. The third "figure", "--", is the "support" given to this node by maximum parsimony analysis; "--" means that the MP analysis did not recover this node at all.
Note also that Taoniscus was only represented by mtDNA (cytb and nd2) in the data set.
With such mixed support and such a data set, I would not want to bet a lot of money on the paraphyly of Nothura -- for instance, it wouldn't really surprise me if adding some nuclear material for Taoniscus resulted in it becoming sister to Nothura, instead of nested in it.

That said, the (Nothura + Taoniscus) clade, on the other hand, is fairly well supported, so that it seems unlikely that adding molecular data would invalidate a broader Nothura.

OK. I understand better. What can you say about the Rhynchotus/Nothoprocta clade?