Proposal (145) to South American
Classification Committee
Change English name of A.
flaviceps from "Olive-headed Brush-Finch" to "Yellow-headed
Brush-Finch"
This
proposal would rename Atlapetes flaviceps to remove a fundamental
misconception about the appearance of this species.
Initially
discovered by Chapman in the central Andes of Colombia in 1911, Atlapetes
flaviceps remained an enigmatic species for 78 years. Although it
remains relatively common at the type locality, the insecurity of Colombia,
along with the small range have kept the species poorly known. Although I do
not have access to Chapman 1914 here in Cairo, I recall seeing the illustration
in it that shows a bird with a distinctly yellow head. No wonder that the Latin
name, flaviceps, would have been based on the type series
exhibiting yellow heads.
Apart
from two specimens taken in 1942, the bird remained unknown until Dunning
photographed one several hundred miles south of the type locality. Dunning's
photograph (which appears to me to be a bit underexposed) depicts a bird
essentially dark above and yellow below. The head is mostly dark olive, with
yellow throat, chin, malar streak, lores, eye-ring, and auricular patch. This
unusual record became the gold standard for the species largely, I believe,
because it was published in a widespread book.
Indeed,
Ridgely and Tudor 1989 in reviewing the few extant specimens, opined that the
bird might better be called the Yellow-headed Brush-Finch depending on the
coloration of the adults. They note that the illustration in Chapman (1914) has
an exaggeratedly yellow head, since the type specimen has an olive yellow head.
The authors also note the variation in the amount and extent of the yellow and
olive on the head.
The
mystery was resolved when I rediscovered Atlapetes flaviceps near the
type locality in the Toche Valley of
Colombia in March 1989. When I first saw a small flock, the bright males
reminded me of Oriole Blackbirds (Gymnomystax)! Interestingly, the first
encounter I had March 20th all the birds were bright yellow and dark olive
brown. My later sightings included birds that resembled the bird depicted in
Dunning (1987), mixed with examples of the bold yellow-headed birds painted by
Fuertes in Chapman (1914). I visited the range of the species four times, twice
in March, once each in August and November or 1989, and found the birds easily
each time. My observations, which were shared informally with Stiles, Salaman,
Coopmans, Collar, and others, became the basis for much of the species account
of Atlapetes flaviceps in the ICBP/IUCN Red Data Book Collar
et. al. (1992). In that account, the name was changed to Yellow-headed
Brush-Finch, based, largely on my field observations in 1989.
The
type locality was also studied soon after my rediscovery by several Colombian
ornithologists. The results were subsequently published (see Lopez-Lanus et.
al. Cotinga 14 (2000) 17-23, Threatened Birds of the
rio Toche, Cordillera Central, Colombia). Atlapetes
flaviceps was also encountered frequently within its small range in the Toche Valley during this study. This article also used the
moniker Yellow-headed Brush-Finch, although it does not discuss why they
deviated from standard references such as Meyer de Schauensee (1964, 1970) and
Hilty and Brown (1986), which used Olive-headed Brush-Finch. It can only be
surmised that the authors were impressed, as I was, by the appearance of the
species (at least the presumed adult males) as having strikingly yellow heads.
The
only other major reference that I know of that has continued the use of
Yellow-headed Brush-Finch is the Threatened Birds of the World (2000).
My
proposal that the bird known as Atlapetes flaviceps be called the
Yellow-headed Brush-Finch is based on the original description, and recent
field observations. The adult bird really does have a yellow head. Some of the
birds are dramatically colored, with bright yellow under parts and head
contrasting with dark back, wings and tail. How the ornithological community
got off on the wrong track in the middle of the 20th century is a mystery to
me. Now that the bird is known well by the few that have ventured to the Toche Valley in the Central Andes of Colombia, it is time
to match up the Latin and English names by changing the English name to
Yellow-headed Brush-Finch
Peter G. Kaestner
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Comments
from Remsen:
"YES. I'm very conservative when it comes to English names, but
perpetuating a conspicuous mistake crosses my threshold. Further, as Peter
points out, "Yellow-headed" has already become the de facto English
name in the conservation literature."
Comments
from Robbins:
"I vote "YES" for the proposal to call Atlapetes
flaviceps the Yellow-headed Brush-Finch given that the name apparently
better describes the adult of the species, and the name already is widely being
used."
Comments
from Stiles:
"YES in that the change corrects a decidedly inappropriate name."
Comments
from Pacheco:
"YES. Considero plenamente justificada a presente proposta
em reverter o nome em Inglês de Atlapetes flaviceps."
Comments
from Jaramillo:
"YES. Based on what is written the
old name appears to be erroneous, and Yellow-headed has become the more
accepted and used name, thereby causing less confusion for us to use
Yellow-headed rather than the older Olive-headed."
Comments
from Nores:
"SI; estoy muy de acuerdo. Soy muy contrario a aceptar
nombres comunes que hagan referencia a un color que no se corresponda con el
color del ave."