Proposal (1027) to South American Classification Committee

Establish English name for the composite species Celeus undatus

With the passage of the proposal to treat Celeus undatus (Waved Woodpecker) and Celeus grammicus (Scaly-breasted Woodpecker) as conspecific (SACC 980), we need to establish an English name for the composite species (undatus has priority).

With roughly equivalent range sizes and degree of familiarity, the normal procedure would be to create a novel name for the combined species to avoid perpetual confusion between one of the daughter names and the parental name. This can be referred to as the “one name, one taxonomy” principle. This is in the official SACC Guidelines for English Names (see C1 and C4). However, these are guidelines, not hard rules, and they also allow for exceptions under various circumstances.

After considerable deliberation behind-the-scenes among those who regularly vote on SACC English names, the overwhelming consensus is that this represented one of those exceptions, with virtually everyone preferring to apply “Waved Woodpecker”, considered by everyone to be an accurate, and memorable English name that we do not want to lose.

Therefore, I recommend a YES to establishing “Waved Woodpecker” as the English name for the newly expanded species, Celeus undatus, unless someone comes up with a better name. A NO vote would be for something else, a novel name such as “Undulated Woodpecker” (the novel name that may have had the most support in SACC private discussions) or “Variable Woodpecker” (added after Lane’s comments below).

Van Remsen, July 2024

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Comments from Josh Beck (voting for Areta): “YES to Waved Woodpecker. Woodpecker names get a bit repetitive and Waved is one of the better, concise, descriptive, and memorable names. It would be a shame to lose this name!

Comments from Donsker (voting for Bonaccorso): “I strongly vote YES for Waved Woodpecker.”

Comments from Rasmussen (voting for Robbins): “YES. If there was another really great choice, I'd be fine with changing the name given the approximately similar range sizes. I do think Waved works well for some taxa in this variable species, while others are really more evenly barred, and some (e.g. from Ecuador) are almost plain chestnut except for a few spots/scales on the breast, not even visible except from a ventral view and not especially prominent. But I guess Waved is OK for these too if you take a broad interpretation of the word. And given its usage I'd prefer to stick with Waved but wish we had better options. The sheer plumage variability of this species makes that tough.”

Comments from Mario Cohn-Haft (voting for Del-Rio): “NO. Waved is a nice name and the sentiment that it should be preserved, if consensual, is fine by me. However, if offering a new name for the expanded species ends up being a dominant sentiment or principle, then something along the lines of Variable Woodpecker might work. At least it seems not to be taken already.”

Comments from Lane: “NO. Mario has suggested "Variable Woodpecker" as a new name for this newly defined Celeus undatus, and I agree this would be a great name, given the plumage variation that seems not to follow any geographic pattern. I don't think there is any other woodpecker worldwide that has this feature, and so would be a unique and apt descriptor.”

Comments from Mark Pearman: “When I think of variation in Celeus, I immediately note the huge variation I have seen in C. flavescens in the field. That may only be because undatus-grammicus are Celeus that I have only seen a few times, in contrast to flavescens variation which is also borne out in museum specimens. I have also seen notable variation in C. lugubris, flavus and torquatus, and believe that plumage variation is a common theme in the genus Celeus. As such, the name Variable draws me back to Variable Hawk with its 26 colour morphs, which is fair enough, Variable Antshrike with however many different looking subspecies, and Variable Oriole with just a few variants and a very poor and useless name in my opinion. If we are so uninspired by such a great bird name as Waved Woodpecker, we could just as well call it AI Woodpecker. Please tell me-, how on Earth, the name Variable Woodpecker will help someone identify their first, second, or third Waved Woodpecker unless they have been studying Celeus woodpeckers in Peru for years and realize that they are “variable”.  I fully support retaining the name Waved Woodpecker for Celeus undatus.”

Comments from Gary Rosenberg (voting for Claramunt): “I vote YES on using Waved. I prefer Waved to something like “Undulated” - and I am in favor of “breaking the rules” in this case, especially since it is already in use - although I am generally not in favor of rewarding those who jump the gun and rename birds prematurely!

“As for Variable - I am not a big fan of using this name for birds - one can use this name for hundreds of species - and it is already used too many times, in my opinion.”

Additional comments from Josh Beck: “I agree with Mark Pearman on variability in other Celeus, but even without that I probably would prefer not to endorse Variable any further. I guess it's a bit of an emotional decision for me but Waved is a great name that everyone knows. I don't think it will be a struggle to adapt to the name post lump, and for the most part despite the large ranges these are kind of "birder's birds" by being truly Amazonian, and thus not birds that people are likely to see and get confused about on their first trip to Costa Rica or Mindo. But if the vote swings the other way, I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

Comments from Remsen: “NO, reversing my recommendation in the proposal after seeing the comments above and doing some more thinking and examining specimens.

“First, my usual mini-rant about viewing all English names from the standpoint of field identification by birders learning to identify the species, the vast majority of whom in this case will never see this species in the field. Those who use English names also include banders, conservationists, biologists, photographers, artists, bureaucrats, etc. In this case, “Variable” likely says something important about the biology of this species, and may even be useful in field identification in alerting birders that “Waved” may be misleading for many individuals, especially in the range of grammicus.

“Second, here are some specimen photos from our series of grammicus to illustrate that variation, dorsal and ventral. I added an extra specimen at the of the dorsal group.

“Here are some photos of LSUMZ specimens of grammicus to illustrate the variation. As you can see, “Waved” is misleading with respect to ventral and dorsal plumage pattern of many individuals:

“We do not have enough undatus s.s. to assess whether variation is comparable in that taxon. Perhaps Mario could contribute some specimen photos.

“Third, upon reflection, if I were re-writing the proposal, I think I would recommend a NO in favor of Variable because:

“(1) Waved is misleading concerning the ventral surface of many or most grammicus, which would fall much better under their original name of Scaly-breasted. Waved may work better for the dorsal surface on average, but see the photos. “Waved” would not be particularly useful to a birder and potentially misleading for many or most individuals. Note that the range size of grammicus is at least twice as large as undatus s.s., so I suggest that applying “Waved” to the majority of a species’ range is not a trivial problem.

“(2) As a biologist, concerning the exceptional variation, I like calling attention to something that is more interesting to me than a fieldmark. The variation is not just in how wave-like the pattern in but also head color and background color of both the back and the breast. Although “variable” could indeed in principle apply to any species with any sort of geographic variation, in practice we apply it only to Variable Chachalaca, Variable Hawk, Variable Antshrike, Variable Oriole, and Variable Seedeater. As pointed out by Mark, the name works really well for the hawk and the antshrike, perhaps not so well for the others. Celeus undatus s.l. (2 subspecies in undatus group and 4 in grammicus group) is more variable (in my subjective opinion) than the other “Variable” species, but that could devolve into a contest of “¿Quién es más variable?”. But the geographic variation does not impresses me as much as the individual variation, and that is the crux of the biologically interesting point. It’s hard to find two individuals that look alike in the same population (which would be good for birders to know in the field). For example, look at the ventral photos and the top two specimens – these are from the same locality in Mato Grosso yet have fundamentally different ventral patterns. This is where the value of the name “Variable” comes into play.

“(3) Finally, use of Variable would also avoid ditching one of our guidelines, which is designed to prevent perpetual confusion to which taxonomic treatment “Waved Woodpecker” applies, given that virtually every bit of printed literature up until now applies it to C. undatus s.s.

Comments from Stiles: “NO. Here, I must agree with Van – using Waved for the combined species would cause unnecessary confusion with previous literature, which brings me around to Variable. Here, I could make a suggestion: use “varying” in place of “variable”: it is different and therefore more memorable, and rather brings out better that the variation is more at the individual rather than population of subspecific levels.”

Comments from Zimmer: “NO. For sentimental reasons, I was on board with retaining Waved, which was, in my opinion, a great name for undatus s.s. On further reflection, I’m less enthused about it encompassing the former grammicus-group, and there is the question of confusion caused by retaining one of the daughter names pre-lump for the expanded species. I do think “Variable” fits nicely, for all of the reasons reiterated by Mario, Van, Dan and Gary. “Variable” gets my vote.”

Additional comments from David Donsker: “As this revealing discussion has developed following the suggestion of Mario to use "Variable Woodpecker", I would change my vote to "NO" for Waved Woodpecker and would support the name "Variable Woodpecker" instead. Although "variable" in the English name has usually been associated with species that have morphologically different subspecies or morphs, I think that it could also be appropriately applied to species that show variability between individuals as in Celeus undatus.”

Additional comments from Josh Beck: “I understand the arguments for Variable, and don’t disagree with the logic, but I still feel that Waved is a good name, still prefer it, and still concur with Mark Pearman’s thinking on this.”