Proposal (1025.2) to South American Classification Committee

 

 

Establish English names for species in the Long-tailed Woodcreeper Deconychura longicauda complex, part 2

 

 

The original proposal (included below) was rejected by the narrowest of margins, 6-4.  The comments contained many useful comments about potential names for these species, about woodcreeper names in general, and English names in general.  Given the close vote, the next iteration is a ranked-choice vote that attempts to incorporate the proposed combinations of names.  Rank each from 1 to 5 in terms of preference.  Barring a tie, the option with fewest points will be implemented.  It is clear that none of the choices is ideal, with valid criticisms of each presented by commenters.

 

I have one general comment.  Much of the discussion centers around what the best name would be for field birders.  Although these may be our primary audience, they are not the only ones who use and care about English names.  Banders, artists, and scientists who study specimens are not necessarily concerned about the utility of a name in with respect to identification through binoculars.

 

Option A: (original proposal’s names based on voice):

 

D. typica: Piping Woodcreeper

D. longicauda: Whistling Woodcreeper

D. pallida: Mournful Woodcreeper

 

Option B: (original proposal’s names based on voice but with Long-tailed group name added):

 

D. typica: Piping Long-tailed Woodcreeper

D. longicauda: Whistling Long-tailed Woodcreeper

D. pallida: Mournful Long-tailed Woodcreeper

 

Option C: (original proposal’s name but Woodcreeper replaced by “Clawtail” (the apt translation of Deconychura)

 

D. typica: Piping Clawtail

D. longicauda: Whistling Clawtail

D. pallida: Mournful Clawtail

 

Option D (from Mark Pearman; keeps vocal names and removes “long-tailed” from typica, because although a am member of the group, it does not have a particularly long tail):

 

D. typica:  Little Piping Woodcreeper 

D. longicauda:  Long-tailed Whistling Woodcreeper

D. pallida:  Long-tailed Mourning Woodcreeper

 

Option E (names in use by HBW/BirdLife):

 

D. typica: Little Long-tailed Woodcreeper

D. longicauda: Northern Long-tailed Woodcreeper

D. pallida: Southern Long-tailed Woodcreeper

 

Option F (new candidate proposed by Dan to emphasize the exceptional sexual dimorphism in size, to a degree unique in woodcreepers)

 

D. typica: Little Dimorphic Woodcreeper

D. longicauda: Northern Dimorphic Woodcreeper

D. pallida: Southern Dimorphic Woodcreeper

 

 

Van Remsen, February 2025

 

 

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Comments from Remsen:

“First choice (1): Option B.  I like the vocal names, and I also like the idea of retaining “Long-tailed” as a marker for the clade because group membership has important implications not just for field ID but also for every aspect of woodcreeper biology, and it also breaks up the long run of ‘Something Woodcreeper’ names in the family.  I don’t mind long compound names – their clunkiness is offset by their empirical value, including maintaining a connection to the name of the parental species, which will be helpful to anyone trying to navigate previous literature.  Besides, no one ever uses the complete compound name except in print – they are almost always abbreviated in conversation.  Also, the name “Long-tailed” is a good name for morphological reasons – there is a valid reason why the species was named ‘longicauda’.

 

“Second choice (2): Option E (BLI names). Although Northern and Southern are insipid, Little is an apt name for that species, and I like the compound names.  A minor benefit would be retaining names already in use, albeit limited.  That Northern’s distribution is south of Little’s distribution is a flaw, however.

 

“Third choice: (3) Option F (Dimorphic): I like the idea of emphasizing the remarkable dimorphism, but I think retaining the “Long-tailed” connection to the split species is more important.

 

“Fourth choice (4): Option A (as in the proposal).  I like the idea of using vocal names but not without the context of a group name.

 

“Fifth choice (5): Option D (Mark’s names): I like Mark’s idea of a slight break-up of the group plus retaining the vocal names.

 

“Sixth choice (6): Option C (Clawtails): This is the only one I do not like.  I like the creativity using the translation, but not the idea of giving them a separate group name, which implies that they are outliers from other species called ‘Woodcreeper’ (most of which have tails that are just as “clawed”); this is misleading when more divergent birds like Wedge-billed, Olivaceous, Long-tailed, Strong-billed, and Scimitar-billed remain as ‘Something Woodcreeper’.  Currently, all we have in Dendrocolaptinae is ‘Woodcreeper’ and ‘Scythebill’, which I think is reasonably appropriate given the relative homogeneity in plumage and morphology in the group (e.g., compared to Trochilidae and Furnariinae).  The lack of diversity appropriately conveys the relative homogeneity.”

 

Comments from Gary Rosenberg (voting for Del-Rio):

“First choice is still Option B - I still both like the original name choices, but also like the idea of retaining “Long-tailed” in the name - even though they are not very long tailed in comparison to other woodcreepers. And even though it is a long name - some dislike that - some don’t mind it, and I don’t think we are going to please everyone.  Even though our main emphasis isn’t necessarily “birders”, we do owe some responsibility to them - if they are going to follow the SACC and respect us - so ignoring them is not wise. I also think this is a good compromise - follows the original proposal (which should be important) - yet allows people to make the connection that this is a split of Long-tailed Woodcreeper - without "Long-tailed” in the name - some will make the connection, yet many others - particularly new birders and scientists, may not make that connection and understand the history.

 

“Second Choice is Option A - I have always like these names - and I also think the original proposal should be given deference - they took the time to make the proposal and come up with the names. One can nit-pick about the definition of the terms - and have opinions about what is “piping” versus “whistling” - but they are unique choices - and I like them. So if “Long-tailed” is dropped, I think just going with these is the right option.]

 

“I don’t really care for the other four options - but if I am forced to rank them, I would go Option E as number 3, Option D as number 4, Option F - the new one as number 5, and Option C as number 6 .

 

“Option E is OK - but so many birds are named Northern and Southern - I just think given the chance to pick something different, and more unique, we should - at least it retains “Long-tailed” in the name to allows a better understanding of the change in taxonomy.

 

“Option D - I really don’t see how this helps anything - it does separate out the form that is not “long-tailed”, but I think it will be confusing to some and they won’t make the connection back to the historic group. It also suggests that there is a “big” Piping out there. I also don’t see why changing Mournful to Mourning is necessary.

 

“Option F - As much as it is tempting to drop the “Long-tailed” from the names (I think it should be retained - see above), I don’t think we should just come up with a replacement - in addition to the modifiers at the beginning. I understand Dan’s point about the sexual dimorphism - and it may even be a more reliable character than the length of the tail - although some of the Long-tailed Woodcreepers do appear rather long tailed) and yes, I realize some don’t) - this might also be the case with the size dimorphism - and it may not always be obvious in the field - so in my opinion, it is just switching one semi-useful name for another - and I believe precedence should rule the day here.

 

“Option C - I see no point in singling out this group of woodcreepers and dropping the name “woodcreeper” - I think this will be more confusing to everyone. I don’t think we should be in the business of coming up with totally unique names for birds that have been called something else forever (like BNFB want to do) - while “Clawtail” is a cool sounding name, MOST woodcreepers have a similar feature - so if you change this genus, why not change them all? Strange that when the genus was named, they picked that feature to single out - is it any more “claw-tailed” than other woodcreepers? Several of the other woodcreepers have a unique feature - Like "Long-billed” - I suppose we can call that Amazonian Longbill - although there would be confusion with the Longbills in Asia :-) Although maybe if we drop “woodcreeper” from all of them, people might stop referring to them as “creepers”.

 

Comments from Areta: “My ranked votes are CABDEF.”

 

Comments from Zimmer [needs revision]: “Having already commented extensively on this in my recent 2nd round of comments on the original Proposal, I will only offer my ranked choices, with the barest of justifications.

 

“1. Option C.

“2. Option B. I’m totally fine with this one, but given the clunkiness of the long, compound names, and the fact that the group name doesn’t apply as well to typica, I prefer to think outside the box a little and go with Option C as #1.  Everything after these two choices is far inferior in my opinion.

“3. Option A.  Nice descriptors, but only meaningful within the genus, not when looking at woodcreepers as a whole.

“4. Option D.  I see the logic behind this, given that typica differs markedly from the other two species, but we are now presented with no group name to tie them all together.

“5. Option E.  Here, we have the group name and historical connection, but the geographic modifier of “Northern” for longicauda doesn’t make sense given that typica is the most northern of the 3 in distribution.”

 

Comments from Donsker (voting for Bonaccorso): “Here is my revised vote for Deconychura English names in rank order:

 

“1 Option B
2. Option E
3 Option F
4 Option A
5 Option D
6. Option C”

 

Comments from Louis Bevier (voting for Jaramillo):

 

“Short answer: B, A, E, F, C, D

 

“1st: B

Path of least resistance? Clunky and long but group name helpfully retained. Long name is not a huge burden, especially when the vocal descriptor is likely to be the word most used in the field. Please see my alternative to this compound group name as well to both “Clawtail” and “Dimorphic” below.

 

“2nd: A

Already adopted by Clements/eBird; hence another path of limited resistance? My dislike of this vocalization-based naming scheme is the same as others in that it only pertains to the three species unless grouped. It is not helpful in the broad context of woodcreepers. As one example, Hilty describes the vocalization of Nasica as a ‘lamenting’ whistle; so as pointed out, ‘Mournful’ does not distinguish D. pallida from another woodcreeper that broadly overlaps its range. Also, if one listens to Curtis Marantz’s long cut of D. longicauda, the beginning is clearly of an agitated bird, and it is close to “piping” in that context before the whistles are heard. Confusion seems probable with these names, good as they are.

 

“3rd: E

Here one detects my inclination to not rock the boat and use names that are in use already. But as pointed out by others, these HBW/BirdLife names are really poor because Northern and Southern are misleading with respect to typica. These geographic descriptors are, moreover, inconsistent with names applied to geographic splits over the same region, e.g. Xenops genibarbis splits of Northern, Amazonian, and Atlantic.

 

“4th: F

Dimorphic was a good proposal as a group name to highlight the marked sexual size dimorphism. I don’t like dimorphic, however, because among birds the word dimorphic” commonly connotes plumage coloration morphs. This is the only use I find among bird names and is surely to be what is expected to be seen in these woodcreepers. Here are examples: Dimorphic Egret/Little Egret (Egretta dimorpha/E. garzetta dimorpha), Dimorphic Dwarf-Kingfisher (Ceyx margarethae) [dark and pale morphs], Dimorphic Jewel-babbler (Ptilorrhoa geislerorum) [sexual dimorphism in plumage coloration, males blue and females brown], and Dimorphic Fantail (Rhipidura brachyrhyncha) [tail color]. While none of these are group names, they still set the pattern for the word “dimorphic” as one involving coloration.

 

“5th: C

I tend to like using translations of the Latin names, but clawtail applies to most woodcreepers, and is especially true for genera like Sittasomus and Glyphorynchus. I suspect Cherrie erected the name in part because he was comparing his specimens to Dendrocincla, which do have less curved and short-spined rectrices. The Greek root at the head of the name Deconychura, is from ‘deca’ (ten), which is how many rectrices Cherrie mistakenly thought these possessed (Hellmayr set this straight in 1904, “Types of five South-American birds” BBOC 14:51–55 on page 52).

 

“6th: D

A potentially helpful suggestion but one that is not consistent with naming conventions and could lead to confusion. Plus, these are a mouthful that might not lead to the shortening that Option B offers.

 

“Alternatives

 

“With apologies given the several attempts at forming a group name, I offer an alternative.

 

“Ridgway used the group name Deconychura for D. typica (Cherries Deconychura). Eponym debates aside, I like this. Hellmayr (1925) continued this, using Long-tailed Deconychura for D. longicuada. So why can’t we adopt Deconychura? After all, Xenops, among furnariids, works well and has been adopted by the birding public readily, and this genus-made-English name was usefully applied in compound form as “Plain-Xenops” when X. genibarbis was split. There are many examples of using an existing genus as a group name; so, this should not be too strange.

 

“My alternatives then call these species Deconychuras. I favor geographic descriptors, but here are potential arrangements. Hopefully this does not create even more rounds, but I felt compelled to offer some versions. Although voting to use the vocal names as my top choices above, I would prefer not to use them for the reasons outlined. But if applied to Deconychura as a group name, then those clarify that the sounds apply to the three species and not other, similar sounding woodcreepers.

 

D. longicauda: Guianan Shield Deconychura

D. pallida: Amazonian Deconychura

D. typica: Northern Deconychura

 

D. longicauda: Long-tailed Deconychura (keeps an old name in use)

D. pallida: Amazonian Deconychura

D. typica: Little Deconychura (or Cherrie’s D, which might be a losing battle)

 

D. longicauda: Whistling Deconychura

D. pallida: Mournful Deconychura

D. typica: Piping Deconychura”

 

Comments from Zimmer:

“1. Option B. These names check 2 boxes for me: 1) they utilize the originally suggested modifiers based on voice; and 2) they employ a group name exclusive to the genus, which has the added benefit of tying in the pre-split species name of “Long-tailed Woodcreeper”.

 

“2.  Option C. I still like Nacho’s “thinking outside of the box” suggestion of using “Clawtail” as a group name (see my earlier extensive comments and attempts to rebut the criticisms of it) but concede that I seem to be nearly alone in that sentiment, so I am demoting it a slot in the ranked voting.  I don’t think this current iteration of the Proposal is set up to accommodate Louis’s suggestion of using Deconychura as a group name, but that would be my replacement choice for Clawtail as the group name, and I would still favor using the voice-based modifiers as my first choice, and Guianan, Amazonian, Northern as my 2nd choice from among his options.

 

“3.  Option F.  I think “Dimorphic" as a group modifier has some appeal, but I agree with Louis’s argument that it implies 2 different color morphs (as in Dimorphic Egret) rather than a sexual dimorphism (If it was meant to suggest sexual dimorphism, then half of the birds in the world could be called “Dimorphic something”, which would be pretty meaningless.  And yes, I understand, that sexual dimorphism is unusual (but not unique) among woodcreepers, but some species in both Dendrocincla and Dendrocolaptes seem to have consistent sexual dimorphism in apparent head shape, with respect to the crown looking “bushy” or not.).  Aside from this, I still don’t like the suggested modifiers of Little (descriptive), Northern (geographic), and Southern (geographic), for reasons discussed below.

 

“4. Option E.  I don’t like these names, because, as previously discussed, “Northern” and “Southern” as modifiers here are misleading, and it seems strange to have a descriptive modifier for typica, while employing geographic modifiers for the other 2 species.

 

“5.  Option A. I still like the vocal-inspired names, but agree that, in the absence of a group name specific to Deconychura, they aren’t helpful.

 

“6. Option D.  This is my least favorite option, because, although it uses the vocalization-based names, which I favor, it doesn’t employ a group-name (other than woodcreeper) that binds them all together.  As we’ve already discussed, the vocal modifiers don’t make much sense in the absence of a group name for Deconychura.  Worse yet, this suggested construction implies (even without the hyphen) that there is more than one Piping Woodcreeper, Whistling Woodcreeper and Mourning Woodcreeper.

 

 

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Proposal (1025.1) to South American Classification Committee

 

 

Establish English names for species in the Long-tailed Woodcreeper Deconychura longicauda complex

 

 

In proposal 997, SACC voted to separate Deconychura typica (including minor and darienensis) and Deconychura pallida (including connectens) from Deconychura longicauda.

 

The three have been treated as separate species by HBW and BLI, which used the names:

 

D. typica: Little Long-tailed Woodcreeper

D. longicauda: Northern Long-tailed Woodcreeper

D. pallida: Southern Long-tailed Woodcreeper

 

IOC followed suit in v13.2 (August 2023), as did Hilty in the recent Birds of Colombia, for the two taxa found there. Otherwise, there isn’t much historical precedence for these names.

 

While many splits in recent years have made use of compound names (see for example proposals 921e-x.2 and 983), others have instead introduced novel names (see for example proposal 912). Woodcreepers are no exception: Barred-Woodcreepers retained compound names, whereas the more recent split of Lepidocolaptes albolineatus introduced non-compound options. Arguments could be made for either approach in the case of Deconychura.

 

Compound names:

 

The primary argument for compound names in Deconychura would be to indicate the close relationship of the three newly split species. Additionally, it would provide a link to the previously used name that predominates all published field guides, potentially providing a better link for birders trying to learn more about the bird they are searching for (and with these species, “searching for” happens a lot more than “looking at”).

 

Arguments against compound names are, in my opinion, many. First and foremost among them is that Long-tailed Woodcreeper was just a lousy name to being with. The tail of the species is not exceptionally long either in the absolute sense or the relative sense, when considering woodcreepers as a whole. Added to that, compound names take already relatively long names and makes them even longer and more clunky. Also, the modifiers used by BLI aren’t particularly appropriate in two cases. “Little Long-tailed Woodcreeper” adds an additionally unhelpful descriptor in that these birds are barely smaller than the other Deconychura, and small size is not a useful ID feature of this bird in the field. And “Northern Long-tailed Woodcreeper” is the name I’d expect for the Central American species rather than the one in northern South America, which occurs further south than much of the range of D. typica.

 

Novel names:

 

The alternative to compound names would be to attempt to coin new ones. Woodcreepers however are clearly not the easiest birds to come up with compelling common names for. Deconychura is perhaps the epitome of that – there is, so far as I can tell, simply no plumage, structure, habitat, or geographic-based names that work well for any of the species. At least not that don’t apply as well or better to any number of other woodcreepers.

 

With that in mind, Deconychura seems like an opportunity to adopt common names based on their vocalizations. As everyone here well knows, most woodcreepers are more easily identified by sound than by sight. Some are nearly indistinguishable by anything other than sound. So it is somewhat surprising that no current woodcreeper common name references the sound of the bird!

 

For Deconychura species specifically, these are birds that are rare to uncommon, and rather infrequently just stumbled upon – one usually either hears the bird first, or finds it using speculative playback. Additionally, the two southern taxa are somewhat distinctive in their range for having songs (when unagitated) that consist primarily of long, clear whistles, with fewer fast, more complex or trilled notes than most other related species. D. typica is a bit less distinctive vocally though, and presents the largest challenge to this scheme. That said, I would propose the following common names:

 

D. typica: Piping Woodcreeper

D. longicauda: Whistling Woodcreeper

D. pallida: Mournful Woodcreeper

 

“Piping” in this sense applies to some versions of the song of typica, e.g. https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/31184. What makes these notes “piping” in my mind is their narrow bandwidth and relatively flat shape, which imparts a different tone than a trill or a rattle. Other versions of the song could be better described as trilled or rattling, but then again so can the songs of many other woodcreepers in range, whereas piping is a less common motif.

 

The other two names aptly describe the sounds of their primary songs, particularly in comparison to other sympatric woodcreeper species. For your listening pleasure:

 

D. longicauda: https://xeno-canto.org/519473

D. pallida: https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/295057

 

Recommendation

 

I would recommend the vocalization-based names I list above. To keep things simple, a YES vote on this proposal would be for these names; a NO vote would be for the BLI compound names listed at the beginning of the proposal, or another option (please list if so).

 

 

Andrew Spencer and Josh Beck, July 2024

 

 

 

Comments from Remsen: “YES.  Clever, appropriate names, especially given extremely limited options on descriptive names, and they draw immediate attention to the importance of vocal characters.”

 

Comments from Peter Kaestner (voting for Claramunt): “YES to the proposed vocally inspired names.”

 

Comments from Jaramillo: “YES on the new names. I should mention that I do not think it is necessary to retain the "Long-tailed" part of the name. We often in splits lament the fact that information on relationship is lost when we create novel names, but that information is useful if it does not detract from the name otherwise. When the "phylogenetically informative" version of a new name is too long, cumbersome, or not all that inspiring I do not think that is useful. My personal opinion on this topic. The suggested names based on aspects of the vocalizations are superb.

 

Comments from Stiles: “YES, I like these names - and I agree, it´s a good way to bring out the importance of vocalizations in woodcreepers.”

 

Comments from Zimmer: “YES vote on these 3 suggested vocalization-based English names:  Piping, Whistling & Mournful woodcreepers, without the group name, which, as mentioned in the Proposal, is not a particularly good group name to begin with.  The suggested audio-based names are not only descriptive, but they also highlight the most distinctive features that separate the 3 species from one another in the field.”

 

Comments from Donsker (voting for Bonaccorso): “YES. Shortened names for these three species would be more desirable than “Something” Long-tailed Woodcreeper. These vocalization-based names are brilliantly conceived.”

 

Comments from Rasmussen (voting for Robbins): “YES to the vocalization-based names recommended in the proposal. Initially I did not think Piping worked well for the short notes of typica, but that name has long been used for several other taxa that have rather disparate songs, like the Piping Cisticola (which does give short notes) vs. Piping Hornbill and Piping Crow (with longer notes), so now I am OK with it.”

 

Comments from Mario Cohn-Haft: “YES, more or less.  Although I'm pleased to see the split, I'm not very motivated by the name discussion.  The voice descriptions are pretty appropriate and even somewhat inspired. But as is often the case with these splits, the names really only resonate in the context of the (now split) species complex. In other words, there are other woodcreepers that pipe, whistle, and mourn, so not sure how useful the names will be once the notion of comparison among species in a complex is lost. My experience with the Amazonian forms is that they are actually pretty distinctive looking. They show a sort of shaggy back of the small head and a notable shortage of feathers on the neck, looking almost bare-necked. But i can't see whistling and mourning pin-headed pencil-necked woodcreeper really taking off.  So, the easy answer is "oh well" or "so what?". The proposed names are good 'nough for gov'mt.”

 

Comments from Lane: “NO. I think Mario makes a very good point, and one that occurred to me the moment I read through the proposed names. These names are not being used simply to distinguish among the members of genus Deconychura, but among ALL woodcreepers, and as such, they are hardly very good definers of the species they are meant to label. Yes, “mourning” describes the song of D. pallida well, but… Nasica is about as “mourning” as a woodcreeper can sound, and the same goes for whistling and puttering within the greater subfamily. Further, “puttering” is a rather subjective descriptor of D. typica, and in my mind, not a very good one. These voice-descriptive names would be helpful if we used them to modify some other unifying name such as “Long-tailed Woodcreeper” but that’s exactly what the authors of the proposal are trying to escape here, isn’t it? Contrary to the comments in the proposal, the members of Deconychura are indeed noticeably long-tailed in my opinion, if one were to measure the overall body length in comparison to the tail length and compare these measurements within the greater “woodcreeper morphospace,” I think you’d find that the name lives up to expectation. Maybe it's because of the small headed look (that Mario very astutely labeled "pin-headed")? I would actually advocate for the retention of “Long-tailed Woodcreeper” here as it would be useful to distinguish these species from the rest of the subfamily, and then add some additional modifier to that name, whether it be voice-related or geographic. Personally, I’d argue that geographic is far more useful, since these species are allopatric and since the voices are so variable within one population, thanks to the effects of motivation, that the voice-based names would be of very limited in value to help actually identify the species. Given that I am generally of a mind that voice-based names are helpful and should be used more as we split up (suboscine) groups with limited other characters of note, I hope my reservations here will be especially noted.”

 

Comment from Remsen: “Dan’s point on tail length is a good one.  This is obvious in specimens and may represent some sort of ecomorphological difference important to foraging behavior.  By the way, and perhaps of significance … Deconychura is “Greek” for “claw tail” (fide Jobling).”

 

Comments from Areta: “What holds us from thinking beyond "woodcreeper"? It is remarkable that out of 52 species in our current SACC list, 47 are woodcreepers (despite their drastic differences), and 5 are scythebills (4 Campylorhamphus, but also Drymotoxeres, that is more related to Drymornis, which is a woodcreeper that spends most of the time on the ground, you know...). Your mention of claw tail (which sounds nice to me), made me think that maybe someday people will move away from the monotonous "woodcreeper" and start finding more useful names to tease apart the distinctive groups of dendrocolaptids (or dendrocolaptines). Especially because many splits are pending in the family, and finding names for some, say, 20 more woodcreepers, sounds tough. I imagine that names such as Mournful Clawtail could be in place (although it may also be opening a can of worms). Otherwise, beware of the Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Long-tailed Woodcreeper above your head!"

 

Comments from Gary Rosenberg (who has Del-Rio vote): “I vote YES on the proposal

 

D. typica: Piping Woodcreeper 

D. longicauda: Whistling Woodcreeper

D. pallida: Mournful Woodcreeper

 

“I am pleased that this group has finally been split up - being most familiar with the forms in Costa Rica and western Amazonia (Peru and Ecuador), I always pointed out to tour participants how different the vocalizations were between the two - so I definitely think it is appropriate that if we are not going to go with a “geographic” designation, then using a vocal description is a great idea. Yes, Long-tailed Woodcreepers are a bit visually more long tailed but unless one is looking at specimens in a tray, and comparing it with, say, Wedge-billed Woodcreeper - the species I feel is most similar, I don’t think birders would key into tail length differences. It has been a while, but I remember there being significant sexual dimorphism in Amazonian Long-tailed - and the similarities between (females?) and Wedge-billed are a definite pitfall. 

 

“Regarding calling this group something like “Claw-tails” sounds cool, but in reality, all woodcreepers have “claw tails” - and I really don’t think that feature would distinguish this group for any other group of woodcreepers. A bit like the situation of spiderhunters and longbills in Australasia.

 

“Vocalizations are so key in woodcreeper identification, so I am very in favor of renaming these with names that describe the vocalizations. One might argue that one is slightly more mournful that another - but in my opinion, this is not important - each name is unique, and like eponyms, it will just be a matter of memorizing which one is which.”

 

Additional comments from Josh Beck: “Regarding Dan's comments on the Long-tailed WC proposal, I would say his logic is sound, but kind of arrives at what I think a lot of people would view as not great names. Almost no Woodcreeper is uniquely identified by its name. Using compound names like Northern, Guianan, Amazonian, and Foothill Long-tailed Woodcreeper would retain the link to the parent, which is certainly a benefit, but I strongly disagree that the name Long-tailed is useful. The average birder who goes to the Neotropics does not see these birds with any regularity, and does not ID them via tail length. I have spent perhaps 1000+ days birding in the Neotropics and have perhaps 10-20 encounters with Long-tailed Woodcreeper (sensu lato), mostly heard only. I've never once been able to ID a seen-only bird as Long-tailed with certainty. Certainly Dan is a more experienced and talented birder than I am, but I am left feeling that common names should serve the public rather than the handful of people who know the bird that well.”

 

Comments from Mark Pearman: “This is a tough challenge, and I am giving a YES vote but with modifications. While I fully appreciate the effort by Andrew Spencer and Josh Beck to name these birds in reflection of their principal songs, the main problem here is that we have another fifty-odd species of woodcreepers that are not named in this manner.

 

“At a minimum, I calculate that D. typica overlaps with 11 species of woodcreeper, longicauda with 19 species of woodcreeper, and pallida with 16 species of woodcreeper, none of which have a sound moniker in the vernacular name. Without going into laborious detail, two woodcreepers in the range of typica also sound piping, and several woodcreepers in the range of longicauda and pallida sound either mournful, produce whistled songs or both.

 

“Then, I agree with Dan Lane that longicauda and pallida do look noticeably long-tailed in the field. This is not as striking or apparent, in my opinion, in D. typica judging from photographs and a video. Yet it is “Little”. Therefore, I agree that retaining Long-tailed is useful for two of the species. Mario Cohn-Haft makes a good point about birds being pin-headed and pencil-necked, and again I believe he is talking about longicauda and pallida, but not typica. Incorporating all this information becomes a difficult task of course.

 

“My suggestions would be to combine names with some shuffling.

 

D. typica:  Little Piping Woodcreeper 

D. longicauda:  Long-tailed Whistling Woodcreeper

D. pallida:  Long-tailed Mourning Woodcreeper

 

“Each of these names combines additional, helpful information for the field observer.

 

“As I mentioned, I don’t see the need to incorporate “Long-tailed” for typica because it doesn’t help. I also think that it is best to use Mourning instead of Mournful because it has a similar meaning, rolls off the tongue easier and is already used in six other bird species.

 

“I do like Nacho’s “Clawtail” idea because the tail spines do look claw-like in all Deconychura. However, changing one genus to a group name opens up a huge can of worms for other woodcreeper genera if one intended to be consistent.”

 

Additional comments from Lane: “In response to Josh Beck’s comments about English names, I think I need to elaborate in an effort to show that I have indeed considered the needs of “the Birding Public,” perhaps considerably more than he has. First of all, as a professional tour guide, I spend A LOT of time with “the Birding Public” and so I think I understand its needs quite a bit!  Most birders--assuming Josh's definition of the Birding Public is "a novice who is trying to learn the birds" rather than "someone who already knows a lot about the birds, their voices, how to identify them" — don't recognize a woodcreeper by voice alone. If they did, I probably wouldn't have a job! The Birding Public tends to find woodcreepers a particularly difficult group to identify, and few are adept at using voice for identification, but rather the Birding Public looks almost entirely at visual characters. Thus, the use of names based on vocalizations is not the most helpful to the Birding Public. Further, as I stated above, there are many other species of woodcreeper that overlap with the members of Deconychura that have “mourning” or “whistling” voices so that these descriptors are not particularly helpful within a region… they are ONLY helpful in separating the members of Deconychura from one another, which is exactly what Josh argues is unhelpful in a name! Josh states that he hears these birds far more often than he sees them, but that suggests he has an extensive knowledge of the voices of birds in the region... which is not typical of the Birding Public, and he therefore is suddenly in the Elite Class of field observers that already knows they are dealing with a woodcreeper, and likely that it is a Deconychura. A name that helps the Birding Public distinguish among woodcreepers within a locality would use some morphological character that is easily visible to the observer—such as the exaggeratedly long tail—to narrow down a Deconychura to genus (making it much easier to pin a name on the bird by sight by sorting it into a smaller category, such as Xiphorhynchus or Lepidocolaptes or Dendrocincla, as birders learn to do in the Neotropics). Thus, to suggest that eliminating “Long-tailed” from the name of the daughter species of this complex is somehow helping the Birding Public is open to question. Or perhaps better put: elite birders might be the ones a bit out of touch of the needs of the Birding Public! Sorry if this sounds irked, but... honestly, it is. Coming up with a good English Name for a Neotropical species is not easy, and to suggest that this committee — with several professional tour guides who know the birds well, and also interact extensively with a broad cross-section of birders from students to local guides to beginner and advanced birders from all around the world—and yet is somehow out of touch with the needs of the Birding Public... well, that irks me!

 

“In answer to Nacho’s idea of doing away with “Woodcreeper” in the name, I have also considered that one. But there is almost no character about the genus Deconychura that lends itself to a unique name. “Longtail” is hardly a useful name with taken within the context of the larger World of Birds. There are so many other groups with long-tailed birds, some very much longer-tailed than Deconychura (Jaegers, Sylphs, Mousebirds, Tropicbirds, etc., etc.), that it is rendered meaningless as a group name here. Woodcreepers are, by nature, very conserved in morphology, so the genus simply does not lend itself well to a separate group name such as “Scythebill” or something else catchy. As noted above, ALL standard woodcreepers have “claw tails,” so that name seems poorly considered. “Pinhead” would be one idea, but it is, of course, a bit derogatory and unpleasant. So, after having already considered such options, I return to “XXX Long-tailed Woodcreeper” as the best set of choices we have for now, but I am open to considering other names.”

 

Response from Andrew Spencer: “Lots of great comments on this proposal, and it has been a lot of fun to read them all! I wanted to write in with my response to some of the points raised by others. In response to Dan's two comments, I have to pretty strongly disagree with him that the long tail is a useful ID in the field feature for anyone other than the most experienced of Neotropical birders. I say this both in the sense of having seen a decent number of Deconychura myself, and having guided birders of varying skill levels and shown the birds to them.

 

“Conversely, I would also argue that "Mournful" and "Whistling" DO distinguish those respective members of the genus from ALMOST all other woodcreepers in range. I completely agree that Nasica is more mournful sounding. And maybe even more whistling. But other than that species, no other in range woodcreeper I listen to really comes close to matching those particular characteristics. Granted, this may be due to differing definitions of "mournful" and "whistling". But on how I define those sounds, they are distinctive. And I fully admit that "piping" is a less useful descriptor. But still perfectly adequate to describe the sound, even if not completely diagnostic. All that said, I could point out problems with almost every bird name on the planet - the perfect bird name is a rare thing indeed. Especially so among woodcreepers.

 

“Now at the point we all admit that there isn't a slam dunk name for these birds, we do have to pick a less than ideal option. I stand by my point that vocalization-based names are a better option for these species that are almost always found by said vocalizations. And I still believe that picking names that describe these sounds well - even if not 100% diagnostically - do the best job of serving as large a share of the birding public as is possible given the less than perfect naming options available.

 

“In response to Nacho's idea of a new group name for Deconychura, in my mind woodcreepers aren't a great group to go down this route. It's hard to find something about the genus that readily distinguishes them from other woodcreepers, and it would stick out somewhat if we carved one genus out of the larger whole over such slim differences. Scythebills, as Dan says, work well because of how distinctive they are. The best I could think of for Deconychura would be "Pinhead", going on Mario's observations on their shape. But "Whistling Pinhead" isn't a name I'd want to saddle any living thing with!”

 

Comments from Areta: “YES.  Woodcreepers are quite conserved in overall morphology, but yet we recognize several genera with different proportions, and still call them all "woodcreepers". The point of calling the Deconychura" claw-tails" is not that they are immediately distinguished by that feature, but rather to emphasize that they form a distinct group (this is what names are for, calling them all woodcreepers is not better). It is also a literal translation of the scientific name, and if we use it without losing our temper about what it means, I do not see how using it as a common name could be a bad thing on its own. Although I do not pretend a 100% match between genus names and common names, it is nice when they go hand in hand. Scythebill is quite coherent, but there are other woodcreepers that could be called scythebills, and yet they are called woodcreepers. Then all the brutal, heavy billed Xiphocolaptes are called woodcreepers, as are the minute, slender, and short billed Sittasomus. Anyway, I do not pretend to explain the differences between different genera of woodcreepers here, but if, for example, we recognize the Cinclodes as cinclodes and the Upucerthia as earthcreepers, then it seems that the time to move beyond "woodcreeper for all" has come. Maybe a historical lack of field studies in the group has resulted in all just being called woodcreepers (yes, pretty obvious that most do "creep woods"). I am happy to begin to add some distinctive names to the (sub)family (or at least to begin a discussion on the topic). I think that it will soon be untenable to call the vast majority of the members of this brown group as "woodcreepers" without creating massive confusion and/or terribly uninspiring names, and I think that we should start thinking on how to come up with better names for birds in which plumage is of little help, shapes are tough to describe, and vocalization-based names are doomed if all have to modify just the name "woodcreeper". So yes, I am ready to open this can of worms and see what we can fish.  I will give two votes here, following the vocalization based names by Andrew and Josh:

 

“Preferred option (that will surely fall in disgrace at present):

D. typica  Piping Clawtail

D. longicauda: Whistling Clawtail

D. pallida: Mournful Clawtail

 

“YES to my second option:

D. typica: Piping Woodcreeper 

D. longicauda: Whistling Woodcreeper

D. pallida: Mournful Woodcreeper”

 

Additional comments from Donsker: “NO. As this discussion develops, I have lost my initial enthusiasm for the use English names based solely on vocalizations. Further, I am increasing persuaded by Dan’s comments.

 

“So, why not combine the essential components of Dan’s discussion with the very thing that attracted many of us to the vocalization-based names in the first place and use the following:

 

D. typica: Piping Long-tailed Woodcreeper

D. longicauda: Whistling Long-tailed Woodcreeper

D. pallida: Mournful Long-tailed Woodcreeper.

 

“I am perfectly aware that many of us will likely balk at the perceived length of these names, but at seven syllables, they aren’t any longer (and in some cases, shorter) than the names we have already accepted for the Black-throated Trogons, and we have managed to live with those names. Further, in the field I would bet that no one is actually rattling off the full English names of these trogons when we encounter them, and merely refer to them all as “Black-throated Trogon”.

 

“As a second option, I would favor simply retaining the English names already in place, insipid as they may seem to be.”

 

Additional comments from Remsen: “I’m changing my vote to NO following the reasoning of Mario and Dan.”

 

Additional comments from Peter Kaestner: “It has been interesting reading the evolution of this topic through the comments of the team.  All the suggestions have merit, and I especially appreciate Dan’s comments about the “Birding Public.”  Someday, it would be nice to find separate names for the many diverse genera, but I can’t image the tsunami of discussion that would elicit.

 

“I am struck with a couple of thoughts.  First is that we are spending an inordinate amount of brainpower dealing with a relatively simple issue.  I definitely feel that we are overthinking this. Additionally, I feel that we are trying to find a perfect solution for an imperfect problem.

 

“The original names are insipid, and the clawtails are too cute. The combo names using both tail length and vocalizations are clumsy, and the strictly vocal monickers are not always useful.

 

“So, I do not change my vote.  I prefer the vocal-description names for the following reasons: 

1.   They are OK.  

2.   They are relatively short.

3.   They will be no more or less appropriate than the dozens of other OK names in the sub-family.

4.   They will be useful for the Josh Becks and Dan Lanes of the world who can point out to their clients why the bird they are looking at or listening to is of the species that makes that vocalization.  

5.   Finally, they just might stimulate the "Birding Public" to focus more on vocalizations and their role in field identification. (With the ubiquitous use of Merlin, voice identification will become even more widespread and important.)"

 

Comments from Rasmussen (voting for Robbins): “Although I take everyone's points and objections to these names, I agree most with both Andrew and Peter on this case. The vocalization names, without the Long-tailed (which isn't very helpful, and may in fact be misleading; I imagine someone looking for an obviously long tail and deciding that can't be it), are pretty good in that they do distinguish them from most other sympatric woodcreepers. They also tie the genus together, and they almost certainly will stimulate people to pay more attention to songs. Most bird names are pretty poor, really—for example, after being told that Red-winged Blackbird is the kind of perfect name we should strive for, I made a list of a dozen or so reasons why it's quite imperfect. What woodcreepers have better or more helpful names than these vocalization-based names?  The scythebills, certainly, although there are sicklebills (in two unrelated families) and scimitarbills to confuse the issue... I'm sticking with the simple vocalization-based names I voted for the first time around.”

 

Comments from Zimmer: “NO.   Before diving too deeply into this, I would like to highlight a couple of comments from Peter Kaestner:  ‘ First is that we are spending an inordinate amount of brainpower dealing with a relatively simple issue.  I definitely feel that we are overthinking this. Additionally, I feel that we are trying to find a perfect solution for an imperfect problem.’  ‘The original names are insipid, and the clawtails are too cute. The combo names using both tail length and vocalizations are clumsy, and the strictly vocal monickers are not always useful.’

 

“That pretty much sums up the problem in my mind – doing nothing is not an option, because we have already adopted the split, and we need new names, and there are NO perfect names to be had.  I really do think that, imperfect as they may be, the vocalization-inspired names suggested by Andrew & Josh are better than attempts at morphologically descriptive names.  That having been said, I also agree with Dan’s point that these vocal descriptors only really make sense if they are being used to differentiate between the various species of Deconychura, NOT so much when being used to distinguish between all woodcreepers.  We’ve run into this problem already with English names for all of the trogon splits – pithy names like Amazonian Trogon or Guianan Trogon really don’t make sense when considering the entire family.  They need to be paired with a group name that narrows the field.  For that reason, I would be okay with retaining “Long-tailed Woodcreeper” as a group name, paired with the vocal modifiers suggested by Andrew & Josh (Piping, Whistling, Mourning).  However, that is a mouthful to use in the field.  Which then brings me to something first hinted at by Van, and then greatly expanded upon by Nacho – how about employing a new group name of “Clawtail” for Deconychura?  The more I consider this option, the more enthused I am about it.  As Nacho pointed out, using “Clawtail” does not imply that this tail morphology automatically distinguishes all Deconychura species from all other woodcreepers.  The fact that it does not, should not disqualify us from using it as a group name, any more than the fact that having a scythe-shaped bill fails to distinguish the various species of Campylorhamphus from Drymornis bridgesii, should disqualify our use of the group name “Scythebill” for Campylorhamphus.  When all is said and done, “Clawtail” is just a group name (and, in this case, a direct translation of the genus name), as is “Woodcreeper” – no better perhaps, but also, I would argue, no worse, in terms of descriptiveness, utility, or accuracy.  Sure, other woodcreepers have clawed tails, just as many other non-Dendrocolaptids creep on wood!  Dan had this to say regarding Nacho’s idea:  ‘In response to Nacho's idea of a new group name for Deconychura, in my mind woodcreepers aren't a great group to go down this route. It's hard to find something about the genus that readily distinguishes them from other woodcreepers, and it would stick out somewhat if we carved one genus out of the larger whole over such slim differences.’  

 

“I would argue that woodcreepers are exactly the kind of group in which employing some novel group names to carve out certain genera would work well.  We need some way to make sense out of naming options in speciose families in which morphology is conserved.  Look at Tyrant flycatchers as an example.  Having 300+ species of mostly drab-plumaged birds all have the group name of “Flycatcher” or “Tyrannulet” presents an obvious quagmire.  So, we have Tody-Tyrants, Chat-Tyrants, Water-Tyrants, Spadebills, Flatbills, Tody-Flycatchers, Royal-Flycatchers, Monjitas, Ground-Tyrants, Kingbirds, Kiskadees, Pewees, etc, etc.  The same arguments against “Clawtail” as not being appropriately unique in discriminating Deconychura from other woodcreepers, could also be leveled against each of these tyrannid group names.  But they help make sense out of the inevitable clutter and confusion of dealing with so many species.  As a committee, we have recently approved moving to the group name of “Flatbill” (instead of Flycatcher) for the various Tolmomyias, “Amazon” (instead of Parrot) for all of the members of Amazonus, and, not too long ago, the completely novel “Stipplethroat” (instead of Antwren) for the newly erected genus Epinecrophylla.  Such an approach even helps with speciose groups in which plumage is not conserved, but wherein the overall diversity of color combinations lends its own kind of naming confusion.  Think Trochilidae.  Instead of 300 some species with a descriptive modifier, followed by “Hummingbird” as a group name, we have Starthroats, Starfrontlets, Emeralds, Sapphires, Mountain-gems, Sylphs, Thorntails, Coquettes, Trainbearers, Sabrewings, Comets, etc, etc, and yes, some of those group names are both appropriately descriptive and exclusive, but many others are not.  As for the argument that carving out a novel group name for Deconychura might confuse beginning birders as to why the various species are Clawtails instead of Woodcreepers, I concede that many relative beginners will no doubt be confused at first.  But that is no different from what is already happening, with many of my tour participants being confused about Scythebills being Woodcreepers, or Kittiwakes being Gulls, or Fire-eyes being Antbirds – it just takes getting used to.  I’ve made the same argument before about resistance to using the Genus name as an English group name – a lot of people are very resistant to the idea but think nothing of using Generic names such as Vireo, Junco, Pyrrhuloxia or Phainopepla as English names, simply because they were already entrenched as such when they first began birding.

 

“So, to sum up, here is my vote:

1)    NO to the simple vocal-descriptive names as laid out by Andrew & Josh in the Proposal, but YES to pairing those same names with a group name.

2)   My clear preference would be to go with Nacho’s preferred option (with the minor modification of Mourning rather than Mournful for pallida):  D. typica = Piping Clawtail; D. longicauda = Whistling Clawtail; and D. pallida = Mourning Clawtail.

3)   My second option would be to use the same vocalization-based modifiers, paired with the clunky “Long-tailed Woodcreeper” as the shared group name, as per David’s most recent comments”

 

Additional comments from Josh Beck: “Although I think Clawtail is an inspired name it’s not really describing the Long-tailed WCs more than other WCs so I don’t feel like it’s a useful change. At this point I think the compounded Piping, Mourning, and Whistling Long-tailed Woodcreeper is the best choice - people can use either the voice based name or stick with Long-tailed or use the whole mouthful as they like, there is no confusion, it just uses a bit more ink in the guides.”

 

Comments from Andrew Spencer: “My vote would be:

 

“1. Option A

2. Option B

3. Option E

4. Option C

5. Option D”

 

Comments from Lane: “Here are my opinions on the options provided in the proposal. A) NO. These names, as I outlined in my responses to the original proposal, simply are not helpful as they don’t distinguish the species in question from the voices of other woodcreepers, including species often occurring in the same area as the Deconychura.  B) If I had to vote for any of these options, this or E would be the ones I’d go for, I think. C) Sorry to Nacho and Kevin and anyone else who thinks Clawtail is a good group name for Deconychura. I simply don’t think it is, particularly in a family where there are either "Woodcreeper" or "Scythebill" and not a wide variety of other names. That would infer that the "Clawtail" name means something useful in comparison to these other two names, which it simply doesn't. D) This also seems to be a very weird answer to the issue (much like Cinnamon Manakin-Tyrant, which still doesn’t sit well with me). I don’t like putting “Long-tailed” ahead of the vocalization-related name, as it is a strange combination I’m not sure has ever been attempted before (at least where the penultimate name is not meant to be a group name, but the starting descriptor is!). E) This would tie Option B for me.

 

“Now, let me throw out another alternative that hasn’t been discussed. Trying to come up with another feature of Deconychura that doesn’t allude to the tail and isn’t a two-worded, hyphenated phrase, I realized that they are far and away the most sexually dimorphic genus of woodcreeper in body size! Why not use “XX Dimorphic Woodcreeper"? This removes the apparently hated “Long-tailed’ yet keeps them as a group. I would even suggest that the long-tailedness is exaggerated in the small-billed females because of the size dimorphism, and if you see a male Deconychura, you may not be impressed by the long tail because the bill and head seem so much more normal in proportion, and thus the tail doesn’t seem so long. I think this may even explain why D. typica doesn’t look “long-tailed’ to the folks who have spoken up about it… maybe they have largely been seeing males? I was hoping to visit the LSU collection to photograph specimens and show this exaggerated size difference, but alas the cabinets are all being fumigated! Anyway, interested to see if anyone else thinks this has legs?”

 

Comments from Stiles: “Looking over the general picture of these names, I'll agree on three points: a) keeping "long-tailed" (hereafter LT)as part of the E-name is appropriate for noting that this is a split of the former species with this name, and so tying with all the previous literature (which more than justifies its clunkiness; b) the best set of characters devised for distinguishing the three species is voice; and c) the invention of new group names seems so far to have shown little justification (and generally causes mor confusion than it resolves.

 

“This said, my rating of the six options is as follows, from best to worst:

 

“B: the best combination of voice and retaining the LT.

E: retains the LT but the supposed distinguishing features of the three are very inferior.

D: better for use of voice but dropping the LT from the name of one weakens its continuity.

A: Voice-only names without LT could cause total confusion with various sympatric species in other genera having more-or-less similar vocalizations.

C: "clawtail" is cute but seems of at best marginal use in woodcreepers, most of which have more or less "clawed" tails.

F: "dimorphic" is also of marginal use, first, because these species are nearly always seen as single individuals and not pairs; and second, using it as a group name either means dropping the LT and thus cutting off any connection with the literature (or by retaining the vocal differences plus adding in LT would produce a monumentally clunky name for each species).”