Proposal (65) to South
American Check-list Committee
Change English name of Myioborus
pariae
Effect on
South American CL:
This proposal would change the English name of a species on our list from a
"Meyer de Schauensee" name ("Yellow-faced Redstart") to a
"Ridgely-Tudor" name ("Paria Redstart").
Background: Meyer de Schauensee
(1966, 1970) and Meyer de Schauensee & Phelps (1978) used the English name
"Yellow-faced Redstart" for Myioborus pariae. [The species was
not described until after Hellmayr (1935)]. Sibley & Monroe (1990) also
used "Yellow-faced."
Ridgely &
Tudor (1989) coined "Paria Redstart" for Myioborus pariae,
with the following note:
"As this
species is restricted to the Paria Peninsula and as only its spectacles are
yellow (by no means the entire face), we feel a clarifying name change calling
attention to its restricted range is eminently appropriate."
This was
followed by Curson et al. (1994) and Hilty (2003), but also with the further
change to "Whitestart."
Analysis: Bob's name is
"better" and is in use in the book that will be used in the country
to which M. pariae is endemic. The other name is older.
Recommendation: I very reluctantly
vote "NO" on this proposal because my basic philosophy is "just
live with" old, bad names for sake of stability unless highly misleading.
Someone could probably persuade me that the name is highly misleading in that a
bird with large yellow spectacles can't be called "faced" (and noting
that M. albifacies, which does have a truly white face is called
"White-faced").
Literature
Cited:
CURSON, J., D.
QUINN, AND D. BEADLE. 1994. Warblers of the Americas. Houghton Mifflin.
HILTY, S. L. 2003. Birds of Venezuela. Princeton University Press, Princeton,
New Jersey.
MEYER DE
SCHAUENSEE, R. 1966. The species of birds of South America and their
distribution. Livingston Publishing Co., Narberth, Pennsylvania.
MEYER DE
SCHAUENSEE, R. 1970. A guide to the birds of South America. Livingston
Publishing Co., Wynnewood, Pennsylvania.
MEYER DE SCHAUENSEE, R., AND W. H. PHELPS. 1978. A guide to the birds of
Venezuela. Princeton.
RIDGELY, R. S., AND G. TUDOR. 1989. The birds of South America, vol. 1. Univ.
Texas Press, Austin.
SIBLEY, C. G.,
AND B. L. MONROE, JR. 1990. Distribution and taxonomy of birds of the World.
Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut.
Van Remsen, October
2003
________________________________________________________________________________________
Comments
from Robbins:
"Following my vote on proposal # 63, I vote for calling M. pariae
"Paria Whitestart"."
Comments
from Schulenberg:
"My vote is NO. By the way, Jorge Perez's thesis also suggests that pariae
is a distinct species (well separated both from castaneocapillus and
from brunniceps)."
Comments
from Jaramillo:
"YES. We, or at least someone,
should have been voting on this stuff back in the 70s before everyone started
changing names left right and center! It looks like Yellow-faced has little
history when you look at the grand scheme of things and certainly Paria has
been used by the main recent works dealing with this part of the world, or with
this family of birds. As such, I think that Paria is much more entrenched now
than Yellow-faced. If the reason we are conservative in not changing English
names is to avoid confusion, I think we need to realize that in this case
changing it to the older name would probably cause more confusion than going
with the new name Paria Redstart. At least this is how I reason on this
one."
Comments
from Zimmer:
"I vote "YES". In general, I don't like tinkering with these
names. However, I really dislike bunches of slightly different
"descriptive" names for similar species in the same genus. Not only
are such names rarely helpful or informative, their very similarity invites
confusion. Geographic modifiers, particularly for species with very limited
distributions, seem preferable."
Comments
from Stiles:
"YES, for reasons outlined above. The use of toponyms for highly localized
species seems appropriate, especially given the conservation situation of many such
species. I have no particular worries about dumping a rather questionable
Eisenmann name in a good cause."
Comments
from Nores:
"YES. Por un lado, me parece bien denominar con el nombre
geográfico cuando la especie es endémica, y por otro yo no estoy de acuerdo con
denominar a una especie extendiendo el color de una pequeña parte del cuerpo a
toda la parte. Por ejemplo, cabeza negra cuando sólo tiene corona negra o en
este caso cara blanca cuando sólo tiene blanco alrededor de los ojos."