Collected emails concerning online discussion over choosing English names for the newly recognized species in the Arremon torquatus complex:

 

 

Anyone have any good ideas on English names of the soon-to-be 6 new species of Arremon "torquatus" (SACC prop 468; passed today but not yet posted as such)?  I haven't checked Hellmayr or Ridgway to see if/what they were called historically, but I'll distribute those names tomorrow.

 

Atricapillus was Black-headed, so that's one we don't have to worry about, and costaricensis is beyond our purview (but Gary go ahead and suggest one for the NACC counterpart proposal).  

 

Personally, I tire of the Santa Marta So-and-so and Perija So-and-so names.

 

(1) A. costaricensis from Costa Rica and western Panama

(2) A. atricapillus from central and eastern Panama and the Colombian Andes (includes atricapillus and tacarcunae)

(3) A. basilicus from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, northern Colombia

(4) A. perijanus from the Serranía del Perijá, northeast Colombia and northwest Venezuela

(5) A. assimilis from the Andes of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and most of Peru (includes larensis, assimilis, nigrifrons, and poliophrys)

(6) A. torquatus from the Andes of extreme southern Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina (includes torquatus, fimbriatus, and borelli)

(7) A. phaeopleurus from the Cordillera de la Costa, northern Venezuela

(8) A. phygas from the Cordillera de la Costa Oriental, northeast Venezuela.

 

 

*****************************

Dr. J. V. Remsen

Prof. of Natural Science and Curator of Birds

Museum of Natural Science/Dept. Biological Sciences

LSU, Baton Rouge, LA 70803

najames<at>LSU.edu

 

On May 29, 2011, at 9:43 PM, Tom Schulenberg wrote:

 

 

   Anyway, we went through this last year, drafting English names for the relevant groups for the eBird/Clements taxonomy:

 

Arremon torquatus costaricensis    Stripe-headed Brush-Finch (Costa Rican)

Arremon torquatus atricapillus/tacarcunae    Stripe-headed Brush-Finch (Black-headed)

Arremon torquatus basilicus    Stripe-headed Brush-Finch (Colombian)

Arremon torquatus perijanus    Stripe-headed Brush-Finch (Phelp's)  [typo - should be Phelps's]

Arremon torquatus phaeopleurus    Stripe-headed Brush-Finch (Buffy-flanked)

Arremon torquatus phygas    Stripe-headed Brush-Finch (Venezuelan)

Arremon torquatus [assimilis Group]    Stripe-headed Brush-Finch (Gray-browed)

Arremon torquatus [torquatus Group]    Stripe-headed Brush-Finch (White-browed)

 

    Don't know what SACC will make of those, but have at it.

 

Thomas S. Schulenberg

Research Associate

Cornell Lab of Ornithology

159 Sapsucker Woods Road

Ithaca  NY  14850

 

This is what we have used for the Handbook of Birds of the World that Jim Rising and I were working on, in consultation with Daniel etc.

 

White-browed Brush-finch	Arremon torquatus
Costa Rican Brush-finch	Arremon costaricensis
Black-headed Brush-finch	Arremon atricapillus
Colombian Brush-finch	Arremon basilicus
Phelps's Brush-finch	Arremon perijanus
Gray-browed Brush-finch	Arremon assimilis
Buffy-flanked Brush-finch	Arremon phaeopleurus
Venezuelan Brush-finch	Arremon phygas

 

 

On May 31, 2011, at 4:03 PM, Gary Stiles wrote:

 

Hola Van-

Have been looking over these bichos regarding common (English) names, here is my "take", for what it's worth (I'd love to have drawings of all the subspecies or a table of plumage features to refine things, but..)

For the "species-groups" defined by Cadena & Cuervo:

 

1) costaricensis: Costa Rican Brush-Finch (C.R. includes the bulk of its range, goes with the Latin name; a more picturesque name might be Talamanca Brush-Finch, since its distribution in CR and Panamá is mostly on the Pacific slopes of this range (but also the Pacific coastal ranges).

2) atricapillus + tacarcunae: Black-headed Brush-Finch (although it has some gray on the head, tacarcunae is blacker-headed than all other forms except the isolated phygas).

3) basilicus: Sierra Nevada Brush-Finch (could be minimal confusion because of the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy (the highest part of the Eastern Andes), but anyone in Colombia except a few mountaineers would inevitably associate "Sierra Nevada" with the Santa Marta range. "Colombian" doesn't inspire me as several other members of the complex occur in Colombia.

4) perijanus: Perijá or Phelps's Brush-Finch (or Phelps' if one wanted to commemorate both father and son) would also do OK. (I tend to prefer toponyms if they accurately describe a restricted range, as "Perijá does in this case).

5) assimilis-larensis-nigrifrons-poliophrys: the most variable group, especially in that some have breast-bars, some don't.. Gray-browed fits all but isn’t very distinctive as most forms in the whole complex have gray superciliaries: perhaps Variable Brush-finch? (something of a cop-out, I agree, but no other clade has such a variability in plumage among the included races). About the only geographic mane that makes sense for the group would be "Northern Andes Brush-Finch", which sounds rather ugly but is accurate, if hardly distinctive.

6) torquatus-fimbriatus-borelli: White-browed seems fine if all these do indeed have white superciliaries -Van??

7) phaeopleurus: Buffy-flanked at least fits the Latin name, though several others have more or less buffy sides/flanks, and nothing better occurs to me..

8) phygas: Berlepsch's doesn't inspire me.. and "Venezuelan" is worse as there are several other species-level taxa in Venezuela - how about Spotted-crowned Brush-Finch?  The gray crown-stripe in this form is broken up into spots (at least according to Restall's plate and description).  Another alternative would be Sucre Brush-Finch since Sucre includes the type locality and a major portion of its restricted range in the easternmost coastal ranges of Venezuela.

 

I can’t see that Hellmayr helps since he considered all as a single species: I would prefer to leave "Stripe-headed" as an all-inclusive name for the entire complex rather than apply it to any one member of the group. Similarly, "Collared", the translation of torquatus, seems best ignored as collars pop up in several unrelated groups.

Cheers-

Gary

Gary -- I'm forwarding your comments to the others interested in the English names.

 

My comments =

 

1. basilicus = I like Sierra Nevada, and Colombian definitely is a stinker in my opinion.  The problem is that most English-first speakers associate this name with California mountains.

.2. perijanus - note also Andres's comments on potential problem with Phelps's/phelpsi.

3. assimilis -- Variable definitely describes this group.  "North Andes" sounds kind of odd to me, especially since there really isn't a definition of that region, and if there were, I suspect it would be N of Maranon, which would not apply to assimilis.  Gray-browed does help vs. torquatus because those two are parapatric in S Peru, where one could use the eyebrow color in the field as a character.

4. torquatus -- definitely White-browed works for all those forms.

5. phygas -- "Venezuelan" is a stinker for reasons I already forwarded.  Steve Hilty suggested Paria.  Some would object to Sucre because part of the range is in Monagas.

6. Hellmayr -- true, he considered them all one species but provided English names for each, so in the cases in which the new species are monotypic, the name has some history (albeit little-used).

7.  Stripe-headed -- I agree this should be reserved for the composite group and would cause lots of confusion if restricted to torquatus.  General English naming principles erect new names for each split species unless one of the new ones dominates the vast majority of the formerly broadly defined species' range (e.g. Red-winged Blackbird retained even though a tiny Caribbean population elevated to species rank).

 

All sound good to me. But, I'm not sure about Phelps's Brush Finch for Arremon perijanus because the potential confusion with the epithet and English name of the Atlapetes latinuchus taxon from Perijá (A. l. phelpsi, sometimes treated as synonym of A. l. nigrifrons). 

 

When proposed as a separate species, A. latinuchus nigrifrons (=phelpsi) was referred to as the Perijá Brush Finch. http://www.museum.lsu.edu/~remsen/SACCprop222.html Because that Atlapetes hasn't been elevated to species rank and its English name is not yet established, it seems that this will be the opportunity to clear this up.

 

Ideally, Perija Brush Finch will go with Arremon perijanus and perhaps Phelp's Brush Finch with Atlapetes phelpsi (or nigrifrons if in fact the latter has priority over phelpsi), but I acknowledge that English names shouldn't necessarily be ideal.

 

Andres Cuervo

 

On Jun 1, 2011, at 7:03 AM, steve hilty wrote:

 

Dear Van,

 

SACC could do "bird-watchers" and non-professionals a favor and stick to helpful geographical names when things get as complicated as this Arremon mess.  First off, most Arremon have been called "Sparrows" which is remarkably inappropriate (another issue). So, if "brush-finch" is use there will be one genus with two English group names (think English names for Amazilia etc). This in itself is confusing.

 

For starters it might be worth changing all members of Arremon to, well . . "Arremon" as the English name, including this "brush-finch.". I checked the derivation of Arremon, Greek for silent or quiet or speechless and decided there might not be an easy English proper name equivalent/translation so why not use "Arremon" as a group name for all of them?

 

 

Steve -- we've got dozens, maybe a hundred similar situations like this, and I don't think it's that big a problem.  Anas and Calidris are classics.  I think there is more to be lost by the confusion of revising all those names within a genus than to be gained by making them more uniformly derived.  As long as the within-genus groupings have consistent names, I think we're ok -- in other words, there are often sensible groups within groups for which one could argue that it might even be beneficial to have separate names.  Birders often are completely oblivious to genera anyway.

 

 

Secondly, when a species is split into 6 units, this is confusing for non-professionals (=birders), which are the users of English names. Because the SACC committee is, with a couple exceptions, composed of scientists that may seldom need or use English names, we should be kind to those who do not spend their lives immersed in the archaic lexicography of bird names.

 

Agreed.  The only thing I would add is that once names are established in birder lexicon, birders themselves openly resent changes and complain bitterly when they happen.  That's not the situation with this Arremon split, of course.  That's why I want to get it right on SACC the first time, especially since the ones that Tom and Alvaro forwarded have problems.

 

Third, splits like this will surely happen a couple hundred more times before we get to 6000 species (instead of current 3000+ on the SA continent) and nobody (especially birders and non -professionals), will be able to remember/recall descriptive names if SACC doesn't work through them in a logical manner.  Therefore, I would forgo descriptive names (mostly) in situations like this.

 

Not sure I follow this logic if the descriptive names are apt and accurate.  Seems to me that a birder in the field will be a lot more satisfied with, say, Buffy-flanked Brush-Finch, than, say, Venezuelan Brush-Finch, given there might be 10 brush-finches in Venezuela.

 

I don't care if they are tiring or boring. They are much easier to remember—and they help "bird watchers" put things in context.

 

I of course defer to your vastly greater experience on how birders relate to English names, but I'm confused -- I've heard just as much propaganda in favor of accurate descriptive names despite their tendency to be viewed as boring by many.  I agree with you in general -- I'll take a snazzy geographic name over yet another Something-somethinged any day -- but I've gotten flak at SACC for NOT using descriptive names.

 

 

Unless you work with English-name users (birders) on a regular basis you may not realize how confusing (and inappropriate or unhelpful) a lot of these names are becoming.

 

Give me some examples.  Because so many of the new splits are based on voice and so on, my impression is that we've been using geographic names even more frequently, if only because there are so few descriptive names that accurately portray difference.

 

 

My suggestions, with preference for Arremon in all cases:

 

A. costaricensis:  Costa Rican (Arremon) Brush-Finch

A. atricapillus/tacarcunae retain as Black-headed (Arremon) Brush-Finch (it has a past history).

A. basilicus:  Santa Marta (Arremon) Brush-Finch (that's the only place it occurs); you may think it is tiring to add one more "Santa Marta" but it sure makes things easier for non-scientists. People can pick it out as an endemic easily,  it is easy to remember. Ease of communication ought to be a goal.

A. perijanus: Perijá (Arremon) Brush-Finch (if there is another split later  deal with that later)

A. phaeopleurus: Costal Cordilleran (Arremon) Brush-Finch

A. phygas:  Paria (Arremon) Brush-Finch (again, this conveys information of its location which is important)

A. assimilis: North[ern] Andean (Arremon) Brush-Finch

A. torquatus torquatus: South[ern] Andean (Arremon) Brush-Finch (ok, it has a history as Stripe-headed Brush-Finch but it has now morphed into six units so it probably easier to use "South Andean" to show some relationship (at least in name) to the northern unit. Unless you want to add Northern Stripe-headed (Arremon) Brush-Finch; and Southern Stripe-headed (Arremon) Brush-Finch. Personally I like the addition of "Andean" to the name because then a reader knows immediately the approximate range of the species.  This is what a good name should do (=convey useful information, color, history etc).

 

I'll float these the group.

 

 

In complex cases like this I would urge a systematic geographical approach to names. This is no time to use little eyebrow and flank colors. These latter best used when there are fewer similars. Besides, most of these (all?) are allopatric so it is geography that is important, not distinguishing colors etc.

 

Again, I'm getting conflicting views.  The opposing view is that a birder already knows that they are in the Coastal Cordillera, so what good does that name do them?  However, if a key character in identifying it is the flank color, then why not focus on that, even if the congeners are allopatric?  [However, I just took a look at Mark Pearman's comment, so this might not be a good example.]

 

Ah, English names!  What a mess.  There's no way to please everyone, but once instituted, eventually no one cares -- consider the utter absurdity of "Evening" Grosbeak.

 

Van

 

 

Team Arremon -- FYI below from Steve Hilty.

 

 

On Jun 1, 2011, at 7:03 AM, steve hilty wrote:

 

My suggestions, with preference for Arremon in all cases:

 

A. costaricensis:  Costa Rican (Arremon) Brush-Finch

A. atricapillus/tacarcunae retain as Black-headed (Arremon) Brush-Finch (it has a past history).

A. basilicus:  Santa Marta (Arremon) Brush-Finch (that's the only place it occurs); you may think it is tiring to add one more "Santa Marta" but it sure makes things easier for non-scientists. People can pick it out as an endemic easily,  it is easy to remember. Ease of communication ought to be a goal.

 

[Steve retracted this one subsequently -- see below]

 

A. perijanus: Perijá (Arremon) Brush-Finch (if there is another split later  deal with that later)

A. phaeopleurus: Costal Cordilleran (Arremon) Brush-Finch

A. phygas:  Paria (Arremon) Brush-Finch (again, this conveys information of its location which is important)

A. assimilis: North[ern] Andean (Arremon) Brush-Finch

A. torquatus torquatus: South[ern] Andean (Arremon) Brush-Finch (ok, it has a history as Stripe-headed Brush-Finch but it has now morphed into six units so it probably easier to use "South Andean" to show some relationship (at least in name) to the northern unit. Unless you want to add Northern Stripe-headed (Arremon) Brush-Finch; and Southern Stripe-headed (Arremon) Brush-Finch. Personally I like the addition of "Andean" to the name because then a reader knows immediately the approximate range of the species.  This is what a good name should do (=convey useful information, color, history etc).

 

In complex cases like this I would urge a systematic geographical approach to names. This is no time to use little eyebrow and flank colors. These latter best used when there are fewer similars. Besides, most of these (all?) are allopatric so it is geography that is important, not distinguishing colors etc.

 

If I could vote, I would vote for easy. In examples like this boring "redundancy" is good.

 

Steve Hilty

 

 

 

Just forgot that the name Santa Marta Brush-Finch is already taken (Atlapetes melanocephalus). Although if you changed all the Arremon group to Arremon then you could use Santa Marta Arremon.   I'm guessing that switching to Arremon will never fly, however useful it might be.

 

Magdalena (Arremon) Brush-Finch also would work. Virtually all of Santa Marta Mts. are in department of Magdalena. Unfortunately, the type locality, Pueblo Viejo isn't very useful (must be a few 100 Pueblo Viejo's in Latin America).  There are a few Magdalena's too.

 

I would be ok with Colombian (Arremon) Brush-Finch too. Already used in McMullan and Donegan's book. As Gary noted, for a complex group like this in which all species look pretty much alike you will be doing everybody a favor if you use geographical names as much as possible in this case. Gives people something to hang onto.

 

Descriptive names and other cute stuff much less useful in a complex group being split up. As an example, even in a simple group, birders hate what SACC did to the White-tailed Trogon and Violaceous Trogon when they got split. Everybody complains about the Green-backed Trogon in which you can never see the "green" back, and the Gartered Trogon, which doesn't seem to have garters. Geographical names prefixed to original name would have cleared those up.

*****************************

Dr. J. V. Remsen

Prof. of Natural Science and Curator of Birds

Museum of Natural Science/Dept. Biological Sciences

LSU, Baton Rouge, LA 70803

najames<at>LSU.edu

 

Van

Thanks for your input. I appreciate your point(s) regarding geographical vs. descriptive names etc. I did not realize SACC had been criticized for not having enough descriptive names. This bird naming process reminds me of what one congressman said about legislation being like making sausage. We might like the end product but it's better not to see how it’s made.

 

Mark Pearman's comments (below) seem to take a balanced and reasonable approach. I think he made one particularly interesting observation—We all have opinions but once its done then we don't care that much.  The use of "Sierra Nevada" is ok, but a bit ambiguous, with Sierra Nevada(s) scattered from California and Mexico southward. Well, Melvin Carriker lived much of his adult life in the Santa Marta Mts. He is important historically in Neotropical ornithology.  Carriker's Brush-Finch? Unfortunately this doesn't focus on the endemic status of the bird and a geographical name would be more desirable.

 

Finally, Caracas Brush-Finch pins a recognizable locality on the taxon and seems like a good choice.

 

Steve

 

Hi,

I see that Gary and Steve had some great suggestions, and I will just either agree and or provide some comments and ideas.

 

costaricensis  Costa Rican... yes

atricapillus  Black-headed... yes

assimilis Gray-browed... yes, it works as explained by Gary

torquatus  White-browed... yes, as above

basilicas  Sierra Nevada... yes, a good name.

phygas  Paria... I was going to suggest the same. It's a well-known location

in the heart of the range of this taxon; the bird is common there, and

people can relate to the name.

 

perijanus   (Phelp's)  [typo - should be Phelps's] I suggest Perija

Brush-Finch

Notes. This taxon was actually described by Phelps and Gilliard in 1940, not just by Phelps. I feel that it is quite unfair to recognize one author but not the other in this case, and I see nothing wrong in using the more informative name Perija Brush-Finch to recognize it’s endemic status in that mountain range, and also because various geographical names have been suggested for the others.

 

phaeopleurus    (Buffy-flanked)... I suggest Caracas Brush-Finch

Notes. Buffy-flanked has severe drawbacks and does not indicate a diagnostic feature. Some of the most detailed recent descriptions of these taxa in Northern South America can be found in Restall (2006):- “ assimilis, washed cinnamon on sides and flanks…; basilicus, sides with grey, becoming buffy on flanks…; perijanus, cinnamon wash on sides and flanks,,,; phaeopleurus, sides and flanks ochraceous-buffy…,”. So they all have buffy flanks or variations on buff, and to make matters worse, phaeopleurus actually means dusky flanked. The range is actually rather small, covering several tiny states mainly just to the west, but also just to the east of Caracas.

Caracas Brush-Finch would be an informative name.

 

I hope this helps some more.

 

Best regards,

Mark

Mark -- good points.  My only problem is that Sierra Nevada is interpreted by most as having to do with California.

 

I doubt that will be a problem, and even if it is, I predict that it would be so for only a small number of people. (Remember, there's no hope for some, under any circumstances.)

 

If you're in Colombia looking at the bird, then odds are you'll get the context. And if you're not in Colombia looking at the bird, you're likely never to run across the name anyway.

 

 

tss

 

--

Thomas S. Schulenberg

Research Associate

Cornell Lab of Ornithology

 

assimilis:

 

Gray-browed 1

North Andean 3

Variable 2

Boissoneau's 4

 

 

basilicus:

 

Sierra Nevada 1

Colombian 3

Carriker's 2 - did Carriker indeed collect the type?

 

 

perijanus:

 

Phelps's 2

Perija 1

 

 

phaeopleurus:

 

Caracas 1

Buffy-flanked 2 - not really distinctive

Coastal Range 3 - only includes part of the coastal ranges in its distribution

Cordillera Costal 4- if we have an English name, what for a Spanish translation?

 

 

phygas

 

Venezuelan 5

Paria 1

Sucre 2.5- a bit less evocative than Paria

Berlepsch's 4

Spotted-crowned 2.5

 

 

torquatus:

 

White-browed 1

South Andean 2

Stripe-headed 4 - worst

Black-collared 3 - not distinctive, confusing

 

--

F. Gary Stiles

Profesor Titular y Curador de Ornitología

Instituto de Ciencias Naturales

1 preferred, higher numbers progressively less preferred.

assimilis:

 

Gray-browed     1

North Andean    3

Variable             3

Boissoneau's    2

 

 

basilicus:

 

Sierra Nevada  1

Colombian        3

Carriker's          2

 

 

perijanus:

 

Phelps's     2

Perija          1

 

 

phaeopleurus:

 

Caracas                  1

Buffy-flanked          4

Coastal Range       2

Cordillera Costal    3

 

 

phygas

 

Venezuelan              5

Paria                        1

Sucre                        2

Berlepsch's              4

Spotted-crowned     3

 

 

torquatus:

 

White-browed          1

South Andean          4

Stripe-headed         3

Black-collared          2

Douglas Stotz

 

Conservation Ecologist/Ornithologist

Field Museum of Natural History

[From Steve Hilty]:

 

assimilis:

 

Gray-browed

North Andean  NORTHERN ANDEAN (OK IT STRUCK SOME AS UGLY BUT DOES TELL ONE SOMETHING ABOUT WHERE IT OCCURS (EVEN IF VAGUELY DEFINED BUT THAT ISN'T REALLY MUST OF AN ISSUE TO ENGLISH NAME USERS);  SEE COMMENTS UNDER "WHITE-BROWED" FORM BELOW. PERIJANUS ALSO HAS A GRAY BROW

Variable

Boissoneau's

 

 

basilicus:

 

Sierra Nevada

Colombian  I SEE NOTHING PARTICULARLY WRONG WITH COLOMBIAN BRUSH-FINCH (SEEMS MORE ACCURATE THAN SIERRA NEVADA); CARRIKER'S IS OK A SECOND CHOICE. THERE ARE SO MANY "SIERRA NEVADAS" (MOUNTAINS) THAT THIS SEEMS PRETTY NON-SPECIFIC AND ACTUALLY MISLEADING AS A LOCALITY NAME

Carriker's

 

 

perijanus:

 

Phelps's

Perija  I  PREFER PERIJA

 

 

phaeopleurus:

 

Caracas

Buffy-flanked

Coastal Range

Cordillera Costal  I  PREFER COSTAL CORDILLERAN BRUSH-FINCH BUT CARACAS BRUSH-FINCH OK (ALTHOUGH YOU WOULD BE HARD-PRESSED TO ACTUALLY FIND IT IN CARACAS)

 

 

phygas

 

Venezuelan

Paria  MY CHOICE IS PARIA

Sucre

Berlepsch's

Spotted-crowned

 

 

torquatus:

 

White-browed

South Andean  AS EARLIER, I PREFER SOUTHERN ANDEAN BRUSH-FINCH, NOT BECAUSE IT IS A PRETTY NAME, BUT BECAUSE IT DENOTES A REGION (HOWEVER LOOSELY DEFINED); THE WHITE-BROWED (AND GRAY-BROWED, ABOVE)  DISTINCTION IS NOT SPECIFIC TO THESE 2 FORMS.  ESSENTIALLY ALL OF THESE FORMS HAVE GRAY OR WHITE EYEBROWS (SOME A LITTLE MORE OBVIOUS OR WELL DEFINED THAN OTHERS) SO THESE NAMES REALLY ARE NOT DISTINCTIVE. I  DO  NOT SEE DESCRIPTIVE NAMES BEING VERY HELPFUL WITHIN THIS GROUP AND SEEING EYEBROW COLORS AND FLANK COLORS ON THESE SHY BIRDS IN DARK UNDERGROWTH IS DIFFICULT IN FIELD ANYWAY. NOTE THAT PHAEOPLEURUS AND BASICILUS AND PHYGAS ALL HAVE "WHITE BROWS" OR PARTIAL EYEBROWS

Stripe-headed

Black-collared

 

Van, Here goes again, with number ranking.

 

assimilis:

 

Gray-browed 1

North Andean  3

Variable  [I think torquatus is more variable than assimilis]  4

Boissoneau's  2

 

 

basilicus:

 

Sierra Nevada 1

Colombian  3

Carriker's  4

Bangs's (Outram Bangs described this taxon, and was an expert on the  

Santa Marta avifauna. Carriker had nothing to do with it.)  2

 

 

perijanus:

 

Phelps's  2

Perija   1

 

 

phaeopleurus:

 

Caracas     1

Buffy-flanked  4

Coastal Range   3

Cordillera Costal  2

 

 

phygas

 

Venezuelan   4

Paria       1

Sucre       2

Berlepsch's  3

Spotted-crowned [grammatically it should be Spot-crowned, but this name refers to an erroneous feature]  5

 

 

torquatus:

 

White-browed    1

South Andean    3

Stripe-headed   2

Black-collared  [ssp. borelli lacks a black collar]  4

 

 

Best regards, mark

[From Andrés Cuervo]:

 

assimilis:

 

Gray-browed    2 

North Andean

Variable           1

Boissoneau's

 

 

basilicus:

 

Sierra Nevada   1  - I agree with Tom's remarks about this name. For what is worth, Colombians vastly refer to the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta simply as "La Sierra Nevada".  Because Santa Marta is the coastal capital city of Dept. Magdalena, "Santa Marta" by itself is most likely taken as the city and not the mountains. Another "Sierra Nevada" in Colombia is la Sierra Nevada del Cocuy, but this is better known simply as "El Cocuy".

Colombian    2

Carriker's

 

 

perijanus:

 

Phelps's

Perija                1   - Meyer de Schauensee (Birds of Colombia, Caldasia 1952) used Perija for this taxon

 

 

phaeopleurus:

 

Caracas           1

Buffy-flanked    2

Coastal Range

Cordillera Costal

 

 

phygas

 

Oriental                1  - The "Región Oriental"  (or Nor-Oriental) in Venezuela is formed by the states Sucre, Monagas, Anzoategui. The Spanish adjective to people and things from those states is "Oriental". By the way, I've heard that the oriental beaches are the best in Venezuela, not sure if that's true though. Using "oriental" could simply fixed the controversy with Paria birds that also occur in Monagas. Plus, this is the easternmost taxon of this complex.

 

Venezuelan       

Paria                 2

Sucre

Berlepsch's

Spotted-crowned

 

 

torquatus:

 

White-browed     1

South Andean

 

 

Stripe-headed

Black-collared

 

On Jun 6, 2011, at 11:58 AM, Andres M. Cuervo wrote:

 

Hi all,

 

I'm sending my rankings, and apologies for proposing another name for phygas (Oriental Brush-Finch).

 

 

Andrés et al. -- I don't think this will work for an English name because in English, "Oriental" implies Asian.  Van