Proposal to (2) South American Checklist Committee

Change English name of Galapagos Storm-Petrel to Wedge-rumped Storm-Petrel.\

This proposal made obsolete by a change in Howard-Moore baseline list -- they have changed it to Wedge-rumped.

The Howard-Moore baseline list that I sent you still uses "Galapagos Storm-Petrel" for Oceanodroma tethys. However, this name is no longer used by most references. It is "Wedge-rumped Storm-Petrel" in AOU Checklist (1998), Handbook of Birds of the World, Sibley and Monroe (1990), Blake (1977), and Meyer de Schauensee (1970), as well as all recent regional/country guides in Neotropics and seabird books that I checked.

The reason for the change, historically, is that the subspecies of "Galapagos" S-P kelsalli breeds on islands off Peru, and this is the taxon that has been recorded in North America. Personally, I don't think that was sufficient reason to sacrifice the previously stable historical name --- otherwise, we ought to change "Philadelphia Vireo" to something else, for example. Nevertheless, I don't see any point in trying to reverse several decades of usage

I propose that we use "Wedge-rumped Storm-Petrel."

Van Remsen, 10/20/2000