Trochilidae (1 Viewer)

[awiner]

This

... specifically, pointing out a 1974 article from Dr. Fernando Ortiz-Crespo, the late great Ecuadorian ornithologist, which discussed the existence of a separate migratory population/species which didn't reach northern Ecuador. (I've read neither article, just abstracts, so I can't speak to the differences or similarities in analysis.)

The thread also opines that "chaski" is an inapt name for the non-migratory population as it refers to messengers of the Incan empire (Chasqui - Wikipedia), who were very much not sedentary! Would be a lovely name for the migratory Peruvian/Chilean population, though that one didn't need a new name.

 

[cajanuma]

... specifically, pointing out a 1974 article from Dr. Fernando Ortiz-Crespo, the late great Ecuadorian ornithologist, which discussed the existence of a separate migratory population/species which didn't reach northern Ecuador. (I've read neither article, just abstracts, so I can't speak to the differences or similarities in analysis.)

The thread also opines that "chaski" is an inapt name for the non-migratory population as it refers to messengers of the Incan empire (Chasqui - Wikipedia), who were very much not sedentary! Would be a lovely name for the migratory Peruvian/Chilean population, though that one didn't need a new name.

Chaski/Chasqui Hummingbird works well as an English name for the migratory population though, especially if it turns out peruviana has priority over chaski after all.

 

[Mysticete]

Chaski/Chasqui Hummingbird works well as an English name for the migratory population though, especially if it turns out peruviana has priority over chaski after all.

but confusing as hell given the nomenclature

 

[pbjosh]

The thread also opines that "chaski" is an inapt name for the non-migratory population as it refers to messengers of the Incan empire (Chasqui - Wikipedia), who were very much not sedentary! Would be a lovely name for the migratory Peruvian/Chilean population, though that one didn't need a new name.

That thought occurred to me as well when I read the paper.

My basic take on the paper was 1) "that's super cool" 2) I wonder how much of this is to varying degrees previously documented 3) I wasn't able to develop an impression of how solid their genetic data might be 4) the naming and priority issues looked to be a headache and it made me happy that there are ICZN / nomenclatural experts out there so I just sort of skipped over it.

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

Matthew R. Halley "Morphological review of the genus Eupherusa (Trochilidae) does not support recognition of the monotypic genus Dicranurania Sangster et al., 2023," Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club 144(2), 103-108, (3 June 2024)

Morphological review of the genus Eupherusa (Trochilidae) does not support recognition of the monotypic genus Dicranurania Sangster et al., 2023

Sangster et al. (2023) erected a new genus (Dicranurania) for the Mexican Woodnymph [Thalurania] ridgwayi (Nelson, 1900), which phylogenetic evidence suggests is the most likely sister group of the genus Eupherusa Gould, 1857, and distantly related to (and polyphyletic with) the other species of...

bioone.org

Abstract
Sangster et al. (2023) erected a new genus (Dicranurania) for the Mexican Woodnymph [Thalurania] ridgwayi (Nelson, 1900), which phylogenetic evidence suggests is the most likely sister group of the genus Eupherusa Gould, 1857, and distantly related to (and polyphyletic with) the other species of Thalurania Gould, 1848. Here, with a representative sample of study skins, I demonstrate that their morphological diagnosis of Dicranurania was based on a broad mischaracterisation of Eupherusa phenotypes, which improperly exaggerated the distinctiveness of [T.] ridgwayi. Therefore, I encourage systematists to classify [T.] ridgwayi as a fifth species of Eupherusa, and relegate Dicranurania to its synonymy.


Bye bye Dicranurania ! ... Damn, it's my genus 😱. Other option, if Dicranurania is synonymized with Eupherusa, treating it as subgenus

Of course it's a joke, we keep Dicranurania as valid genus

 

[Larry Sweetland]

as someone who stands to either gain or lose one species (or maybe end up even stevens i guess) on my list depending on how things pan out with this putative split, naturally I am heavily invested in figuring out the situation 🤪

the Williamson paper is a little contradictory on the range of the high altitude "chaski" taxon, saying on the one hand it is "a nonmigratory species ranging from southern Colombia to at least Southern Peru" based on the sampling locations of the chaski genotype birds i.e. no birds sampled in Chile were in that clade.

But in the formal description of the new taxon it says it "spans an altitude of 1,900 to 3,800 m in Chile" based on... i'm not sure exactly. It's not clear whether all the samples from northern Chile and Western Argentina etc that were found to be in the southern migratory clade were sampled during the period when they would have been migrating through the region rather than breeding but that is presumably the implication?

Range maps on Birdlife datazone and xeno-canto show resident birds stretching as far south as Santiago. Is that true? Are there birds breeding in the high Andes in Northern and Central Chile? If so, is there a discontinuity between their breeding range and the breeding range of the migratory lowland breeding birds?

Also, if there are birds breeding in the Chilean Andes, how confident can we be that they belong to the northern/high altitude chaski clade given no birds from that clade were sampled from that region?

a lot of questions....

cheers,
James

I'm a bit puzzled re Giant Hummingbird too. I've only seen them in the northern winter months. The furthest apart I've seen them is in northern Peru (near Cajamarca) and towards the southern end of their Argentinian range in Mendoza province (foothills).

 

[birdboybowley]

Me too.....I'm all for a good armchair tick but this one is a tad confusing. I've seen them in northern Ecuador and central Chile so have no idea which is which? 🤷😂😂

 

[James Lowther]

Me too.....I'm all for a good armchair tick but this one is a tad confusing. I've seen them in northern Ecuador and central Chile so have no idea which is which? 🤷😂😂

Northern Ecuador = northern (southern don’t migrate that far north by the looks)
Central Chile (lowlands presumably?) = southern (seems northern breed in high Andes in far northern Chile but no further south)

Time of year is also important, migratory southern should all leave wintering areas in Peru etc during the austral summer

Cheers
James

 

[birdboybowley]

Cheers James, yes lowlands in Chile 👍🏻

 

[Taphrospilus]

Sorry as I haven't read the paper. How is the subspecies treated? Patagona gigas peruviana Boucard, 1893 or Patagona chaski peruviana?

 

[Xenospiza]

Sorry as I haven't read the paper. How is the subspecies treated? Patagona gigas peruviana Boucard, 1893 or Patagona chaski peruviana?

But you could have read the thread, haha! It's treated as a nomen dubium.

Trochilidae

Yes, I'm pretty sure the search is picking up version 4.1. If you search for Chalcostigma, it only shows the five species, as version 4.1. The new revision (let's call it 5.0) has ten species in Chalcostigma. The five species from the Chalcostigma sensu 4.1, the four species that were...

www.birdforum.net

 

[Taphrospilus]

OK thank you I missed that.

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

or Patagona chaski peruviana?

Then, with the rule of priority, this combination would be impossible anyway

 

[Peter Kovalik]

Freile, Juan F.,Paúl Tito, José María Loaiza-Bosmediano, and Elisa Bonaccorso (2024) Exploring the contact zones between Ecuadorian Hillstar (Oreotrochilus chimborazo) subspecies. Wilson Journal of Ornithology 136: 123-133.
Exploring the contact zones between Ecuadorian Hillstar (Oreotrochilus chimborazo) subspecies

Abstract
We investigated the contact zones between subspecies of the Ecuadorian Hillstar (Oreotrochilus chimborazo). This species occupies both Andean cordilleras, from the southern tip of Colombia to the paramos of south Ecuador. The subspecies O. c. jamesonii inhabits all the paramos in this range, except for those of the Chimborazo volcano, where it is replaced by O. c. chimborazo. Genetic analyses suggest that these subspecies may be in contact north and south of the Chimborazo volcano. Since contact north of the Chimborazo volcano has been documented, our main goal was to verify the presence of a contact zone south of the Chimborazo volcano. Between July 2021 and July 2022, we visited 29 localities within the range of this species north and south of the Chimborazo volcano, in the central-east Andes of Ecuador, and explored previous data to revise the geographic distribution of the species. We found that subspecies O. c. chimborazo and O. c. jamesonii are syntopic at a site located 65 km south of Chimborazo volcano. Along the central-eastern Andes, we only found O. c. jamesonii. We also recorded O. c. chimborazo between the Chimborazo and Quilotoa volcanoes and found no evidence of males with intermediate plumages. The available data suggest that the contact zone between these subspecies spans a north-to-south band of approximately 130 km of the western Andes of Ecuador. However, at the center of that stretch at the Chimborazo plateau, only O. c. chimborazo has been found. We confirmed the coexistence of Ecuadorian Hillstar subspecies in at least 1 locality south of the Chimborazo volcano. Whether this coexistence implies contemporary gene flow between both subspecies should be addressed in future studies.

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

Jessie L. Williamson, Chauncey R. Gadek, Bryce W. Robinson, Emil Bautista, Selina M. Bauernfeind, Matthew J. Baumann, Ethan F. Gyllenhaal, Peter P. Marra, Natalia Ricote, Nadia D. Singh, Thomas Valqui, Christopher C. (2024). Witt Taxonomy and nomenclature of the giant hummingbirds (Patagona spp.) (Aves: Trochilidae).

Taxonomy and nomenclature of the giant hummingbirds (Patagona spp.) (Aves: Trochilidae)

The giant hummingbirds (Patagona spp.) are a clade of extraordinarily large but nondescript hummingbirds whose taxonomy was muddled during the two centuries following its description. The systematics of this group were recently redefined in a study of migration and genetics by Williamson et al...

www.biorxiv.org

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

@l_raty is angry

 

[l_raty]

Sorry, but IMHO they should not waste the time of the Commission for this type of absurd reason.
Both names have had very little use so far, there can't reasonably be any thread to stability and/or universality of nomenclature here.
Please stick to the standard application of the Code.

 

[Mike Earp]

Sorry, but IMHO they should not waste the time of the Commission for this type of absurd reason.
Both names have had very little use so far, there can't reasonably be any thread to stability and/or universality of nomenclature here.
Please stick to the standard application of the Code.

You'll love this one then: The Puerto Rican Tody (Todus mexicanus): what’s in a name? You've previously flagged this bit of the Code in relation to just this case:

Article 18. Inappropriate and tautonymous names​

The availability of a name is not affected by inappropriateness or tautonymy [Art. 23.3.7].

Examples. Names such as Polyodon, Apus, albus or sinensis are not to be rejected because of a claim that they denote a character or distribution not possessed by the taxon. Species-group names such as bison in Bison bison and troglodytes in Troglodytes troglodytes troglodytes are not to be rejected because of tautonymy.

 

[l_raty]

You'll love this one then: The Puerto Rican Tody (Todus mexicanus): what’s in a name? You've previously flagged this bit of the Code in relation to just this case:

So what we have, here, is a suggestion to deliberately violate the Code when it does not produce your preferred outcome. (A suggestion backed up by a Commissioner...) Against this type of thing, there is little that can be done, I'm afraid.
(And, yes, indeed, we do have a precedent in ornithology -- unfortunately... So we can't even blame the authors for suggesting something unthinkable.)

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

So what we have, here, is a suggestion to deliberately violate the Code when it does not produce your preferred outcome. (A suggestion backed up by a Commissioner...) Against this type of thing, there is little that can be done, I'm afraid.
(And, yes, indeed, we do have a precedent in ornithology -- unfortunately... So we can't even blame the authors for suggesting something unthinkable.)

We have the same case with Coriphilus peruvianus, who doesn't even live in South America