Proposal (1037) to South American Classification Committee

Establish English names for Dubusia taeniata complex

With the passage of SACC 1017, we now recognize 3 species for the species once known as Buff-breasted Mountain Tanager, as follows:

• Dubusia carrikeri: Santa Marta Mountains, Colombia.

• Dubusia taeniata: humid Andes north of the Marañon, from n. Peru north to n. Colombia and nw. Venezuela

• Dubusia stictocephala: humid Andes south of the Marañon in Peru from Amazonas to Cuzco.

Our guidelines make retention of parental Buff-breasted for one of the daughters, e.g. D. taeniata sensu stricto, undesirable because of the perpetual confusion it would cause in terms of what taxon that English name refers to and because creation of a new name calls attention to the taxonomic change.

BirdLife International used the following:

“Streak-crowned” for stictocephala and “Carriker’s” for carrikeri, and retained parental “Buff-breasted” for taeniata

• carrikeri: Carriker’s

• taeniata: Buff-breasted

• stictocephala: Streak-crowned

EBird/Clements, which doesn’t yet treat them as species, uses the following for the subspecies groups:

• carrikeri: Carriker’s

• taeniata: Buff-breasted

• stictocephala: Cerulean-streaked

The easiest thing to do is to adopt one of these two schemes as is and be done with it. But as long as we’re going to try to establish new names, I think it’s worth spending some time on this to produce what might be the best outcome. So, taking each name one at a time …

1. D. carrikeri. As noted in SACC 1017, I think “Carriker’s” is highly appropriate. No ornithologist’s name is more directly associated with the Santa Martas (e.g. Todd and Carriker, 1922, Birds of the Santa Marta Mountains, Annals Carnegie Museum, 611 pages), and this is something that bird people should be interested in knowing. See David Weidenfeld’s and Storrs Olson’s tributes, and also Wiedenfeld’s paper on Carriker in Bolivia. Because SACC is no longer associated with AOS, any constraints eponyms has been removed, and HBW/BLI has been using “Carriker’s” for 8 years. Carriker lived in the Santa Martas, and his son was on born there; his son wrote an excellent book on his time there (“Vista Nieve: the Remarkable True Adventures of an Early Twentieth-Century Naturalist and his family in Colombia, South America” by M. R. Carriker, 2001). This would be the first English name to honor him; he has one honorific species name, Grallaria carrikeri. Carriker’s also has a track record of recent usage, an added benefit.”

“I personally think it would be a shame to miss an opportunity to honor one of the major contributors to the foundation of ornithology in western South America for a bird from, of all places, his beloved Santa Martas. Descriptive names such as Streak-throated are basically insipid, in my opinion.”

2. D. taeniata: See our guidelines for why retaining Buff-breasted isn’t considered a “best practice” if we can find a suitable replacement. It is the only one of the three that has much of a true buff color (as opposed to tawny or something with some orange in it), but the buff color doesn’t occupy all of the breast per se, but only a narrower band. So, Buff-banded would more accurately describe its distribution and maintain the connection to Buff-breasted.

3. D. stictocephala: Streak-crowned is highly appropriate because it emphasizes one of the diagnostic plumage features of the species and is already in limited use. The crown itself isn’t always easy to see, and the other two species do have streaks on the sides of the crown. Nonetheless, it’s a pretty good name. The name stictocephala is Greek for “spotted headed”, but the markings are better described as streaks. The competitor Cerulean-streaked, although technically correct and inspired, implies, to me, that there is a difference in the color of those streaks between this and the other two species, which as far as I can tell is not correct.

Here are LSUMNS specimen photos of taeniata and stictocephala – we don’t have carrikeri:

Let’s break the proposal into 3 parts as per above.

1. YES for Carriker’s; NO for something else, e.g. Streak-throated.”

2. YES for Buff-banded; NO for something else, e.g. Buff-breasted.

3. YES for Streak-crowned; NO for something else, e.g. Cerulean-crowned.

Van Remsen, November 2024

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Vote tracking chart: https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCPropChart968-1043.htm

Comments from Stiles: “I like all three of your proposed names, so YES to all.”

Comments from Areta:

“1. NO to Carriker´s, YES to Streak-throated Mountain Tanager (carrikeri): I prefer a more descriptive name over Carriker´s, and the most obvious difference with the other species is the streaky throat of carrikeri.

“2. NO to Buff-breasted, YES to Ribboned Mountain Tanager or Festooned Mountain Tanager (taeniata): I think that there are enough Buff-breasted or zzzz-banded birds (in addition to the confusion of what a "band" is, which to me is more linked to wing bands), and I suggest that we can consider the breast band as a ribbon or a festoon, providing a more memorable name that is shorter and lacks a hyphen

“3. YES to Streak-crowned Mountain Tanager (stictocephala): I am fine with this name, it could either be -crowned or -headed.”

Comments from Rasmussen (voting for Robbins): “I was going to suggest Streak-throated for carrikeri, then saw that Nacho already did. Nothing against Carriker, but this seems a really good and helpful name. I'm OK on Buff-banded for taeniata, as it really is buff and it really is a band, but something that captured the beautiful swirl of silvery-blue feathers framing the face would be nicer; just can't think of what that would be. For stictocephala, Streak-crowned is fine but kind of boring; maybe someone can do better?”

Comments from Donsker (voting for Bonaccorso): “I would strongly prefer these English names for the three species in the Dubusia taeniata complex all explained by Van in his proposal:

Dubusia carrikeri Streak-throated Mountain Tanager. 

Dubusia taeniata Buff-banded Mountain Tanager. 

Dubusia stictocephala Streak-crowned Mountain Tanager. 

Comments from Steve Hilty (voting for Del-Rio): “Raising the three races of Dubusia taeniata to species level certainly seems warranted. Vocal info for stictocephalus especially clear and mirrored in dozens of other taxa that break at the Marañon—a little surprising that this wasn't done with the first (#392) proposal. Song of carrikeri is closer to taeniata but obviously different—song differences noted in my 2021 Birds of Colombia. Also note plumage differences, and geographic isolation. Boesman confirms vocal differences of carrikeri, which are particularly evident in field.

“Here are my votes on English names:

• Carriker's Mountain-Tanager

• Buff-breasted Mountain-Tanager (I see no point in changing this name, contrary to history of requiring change; keep it as simple as possible)

• Blue-streaked Mountain-Tanager for stictocephalus—although there are likely other good options. "Cerulean-streaked" seems "forced" as if we're trying too hard to be precise.”

Comments from Robbins (voting for Claramunt): “After reading all the comments, here are the three names, all descriptive, that I think are best:

“• carrikeri -- Streak-throated
• taeniata - Buff-banded
• stictocephala - Blue-streaked, more descriptive than a generic Streak-crowned”

Comments from Lane:

“1) YES for Carriker’s (the streaking on the throat is not reliably obvious in the field, so I think that’s a poor choice of names).

“2) NO, from my field experience, the buff is so innocuous that it can seem indistinguishable from the yellow belly more often than not. I’d prefer something like Blue-browed Mountain-Tanager or Diademed Mountain-Tanager (though that latter might be too similar to Diademed Tanager, which is related to mountain-tanagers).

“3) YES to Streak-crowned over the more cumbersome Cerulean-streaked. I will point out that, in my field experience with this species, the crown is inevitably peaked or crested, which I have not noticed to be a common attitude in the other two Dubusia. Not sure if that would be worth including in the name, but just an observation supporting the distinctiveness of the species from its congeners.”

Comments from Zimmer:

“1) YES for Carriker’s. I’d be hard-pressed to think of a more appropriate eponymous name. Also, it’s kind of crazy to think that there is not currently a single English name honoring Carriker’s vast contributions to South American ornithology. This also has the advantage of already having traction with both BirdLife International and eBird/Clements. As per Dan’s comments, “Streak-throated” doesn’t seem to reflect a particularly useful field character.

“2) YES for Buff-banded. That was my immediate reaction before even seeing that Van had suggested it. I agree that retaining Buff-breasted for 1 of the 3 daughters of this split would only invite confusion in the literature.

“3) YES to Streak-crowned. This is probably the one I’m least enthusiastic about, but I think it’s important to note that the streaks are on the crown (and nape & mantle). Blue-streaked or Cerulean-streaked sound nicer, but just hearing those names tends to conjure a bird with blue streaks on the breast, not confined to the top and back of the head.”

Comments from Gary Rosenberg (voting for Jaramillo):

“1) I vote YES on Carriker’s. I think this is VERY appropriate in honoring Carriker for his work in the Santa Martas. I agree with others in that it is way long overdue to honor him with a common English Name. We could list all the many reasons why using an eponym in this case is appropriate - but that would just be rehashing a very contentious argument - but by adopting Carriker, we make a statement that the SACC will not be bullied into changing its ways because of what most of us view as a totally frivolous argument for NOT using new eponymous names when appropriate. Plus, the streaks on the throat are very difficult to see in the field, and not the first thing one notices.

“2) I vote YES to Buff-banded. I am a bit torn on using this as opposed to “Buff-breasted”, which I would be fine with as I am usually in favor of retaining a long-used common name as I think it makes it easier for those in the field making the proper association - but I have always thought that the buff is very difficult to see, and IS really a band of buff, as opposed to a buff breast - so I am fine with changing it in this case - BUT I would be totally fine in retaining Buff-breasted.

“3) I vote YES for Streak-crowned. I personally do not like Cerulean-crowned or Cerulean-streaked - seeing that specific color is likely difficult in the field - but seeing that the crown is actually streaked is more likely - in my opinion it is appropriate to emphasize the “crown” - which looks streaked. Using “Cerulean-streaked” does not indicate where the cerulean streaks are - and using “Cerulean-crowned” would not be accurate. Plus, both taeniata and carrikeri have blue streaking on the forehead or eyebrow - so just Cerulean-streaked is not specific enough. I prefer sticking with simplicity and using Streak-crowned does that.”