Proposal (187) to South American Classification Committee
Change
English name of Neopipo cinnamomea
Summary of voting procedure and issue: This is
the first in a series of proposals to establish an agreed English name
for Neopipo cinnamomea. Four possible alternatives exist for the
name of this species, perhaps making this a uniquely difficult case
procedurally. A voting strategy has been developed in consultation with Van Remsen
that will allow all names to be voted upon, and thus all proponents of names to
feel that their case has been heard, so to speak.
This English name of this species is currently "Cinnamon
Tyrant-Manakin" on the baseline. Other names used in the literature are
"Cinnamon Neopipo" and "Cinnamon Tyrant". A fourth name,
"Cinnamon Manakin-Tyrant" may be the best name of all, but is not
currently used.
Voting will therefore take place via a series of three proposals:
A. Change name of Neopipo
cinnamomea to "Cinnamon Neopipo"
B. Change name of Neopipo
cinnamomea to "Cinnamon Tyrant"
C. Change
name of Neopipo cinnamomea to "Cinnamon
Manakin-Tyrant"
Regardless of the result of any proposal, each of the other
proposals will be put forwards. Thus, each proposal can be addressed
independently on its merits against the name used at the time and voting can
take place independently, if this is desired. Alternatively, discussions in
voting could be used to argue towards an agreed voting strategy aimed at
minimizing multiple switches in the English name of this taxon. For example, if
a majority were in favour of (C.), they could vote against (B.) and (A.) even
if they are preferred to the baseline. I have put these proposals simply in
order of personal preference (least to greatest).
Discussion generally: I'll quote from the baseline
extract explanation of the status of this species, as I do not think I can
improve on Remsen's succinctness in summarizing the situation:
"Neopipo cinnamomea was
formerly (e.g., Pinto 1944, Phelps & Phelps 1950a, Meyer de Schauensee
1970) placed in the Pipridae ("Cinnamon Manakin"); placement in
Tyrannidae follows Mobley and Prum (1995). Called "Cinnamon
Tyrant-Manakin" in Sibley & Monroe (1990), "Cinnamon Tyrant"
in Mobley & Prum (1995) and Fitzpatrick (2004), and "Cinnamon
Neopipo" in Ridgely & Greenfield (2001) and Hilty (2003), thus perhaps
setting a new temporal record for lack of stability in an English name.
Proposal needed."
Proposal for Cinnamon Neopipo: I would suggest that
reverting to the Latin generic name "Cinnamon Neopipo", as has been
suggested by Ridgely and Hilty, among others, would be a retrograde step.
"Neopipo" simply means "New Manakin" to me, albeit in a
dead language. A beginner unaware of the family of this species and looking at
it for the first time would almost certainly assume it were a piprid if it were
to have this English name. Mobley & Prum's paper provided pretty solid
evidence that this species is in the Myiophobus assemblage of
the Tyrannidae and is not at all related to the Pipridae - it thus seems very
unlikely to move again meaning that a family-neutral name is not necessary.
Finally, the GOOGLE search described below suggests that this name has not
"caught on" at all (Schiffornis as an English name, by comparison,
had over 700 hits). I would therefore suggest a "No" vote for this
name.
[Proposal for Cinnamon Manakin-Tyrant: I would suggest that
"Cinnamon Tyrant-Manakin", the current SACC baseline name, is
inappropriate because:
Anairetes
alpinus Ash-breasted Tit-Tyrant: is a Tyrant, not a Tit.
Stigmatura
budytoides Greater Wagtail-Tyrant: is a Tyrant, not a Wagtail
Phylloscartes
lanyoni Antioquia Bristle-Tyrant: is a Tyrant, not a Bristle
Sublegatus
modestus Southern Scrub-Flycatcher: is a Flycatcher, not a Scrub.
Hemitriccus
griseipectus White-bellied Tody-Tyrant: is a Tyrant, not a Tody
Knipolegus
poecilocercus Amazonian Black-Tyrant: is a Tyrant, not a Black
Muscisaxicola
albifrons White-fronted Ground-Tyrant: is a Tyrant not a Ground
Myiotheretes
fumigatus Smoky Bush-Tyrant: is a Tyrant, not a Bush
Fluvicola
pica Pied Water-Tyrant: is a Tyrant not a Water.
"Cinnamon
Tyrant-Manakin" is, however, NOT a Manakin but is a Tyrant.
The obvious thing to do if one were starting from scratch would be
to switch the order of the words "Manakin" and "Tyrant" to
form "Cinnamon Manakin-Tyrant". Given the lack of stability of the
name of this taxon, this may be the best thing to do in any event. SACC is
increasingly being adopted as the standard by scientific journals. Any decision
would therefore be likely to catch on. However, approving such usage at this
stage would involve a name with no history and could be criticized as
subjective when there is nothing strictly "wrong" with "Cinnamon
Tyrant" or "Cinnamon Neopipo," the other alternative name.
Furthermore, plenty of wrong, misleading or just plain boring tyrannid names
exist, thus a good reason would be needed to treat this differently. Such
reasons could be that, "Manakin-Tyrant" nicely reflects the original
mistake in the taxon's classification (and its Latin name) and has the
advantage of minimizing change from the current name on SACC. Also, few would
confuse this name with that currently on the baseline and in wide use.
A GOOGLE search of the relevant English name together with the
word "Neopipo" revealed the following: Cinnamon Tyrant 296, Cinnamon
Tyrant-Manakin 521, Cinnamon Neopipo 32, and Cinnamon Manakin 52. This would
suggest that stability would favour the misleading current moniker
"Tyrant-Manakin" ahead of "Tyrant" and then
"Neopipo". Support for "Manakin-Tyrant" could perhaps be
drawn from usage of "Tyrant-Manakin" given the similarity of these
two formulations.
Proposal for Cinnamon Tyrant: "Cinnamon
Tyrant" seems to be gathering increasing support as the name for this
species with the passage of time, with HBW an important publication in this
context. This name bears consideration as the probably the best of the
available names in current use. It is also fairly widely used, as shown in the
GOOGLE results, though not as much as the erroneous current moniker.
-
I note for completeness that the Cinnamon Flycatcher Pyrrhomyias
cinnamomeus occupies the other possible English name combination for
this species.
References above are all cited on the SACC references pages.
Voting on the first vote (A): A "Yes" vote
would be to change "Cinnamon Tyrant-Manakin" to "Cinnamon
Neopipo". A "No" vote would be to retain "Cinnamon
Tyrant-Manakin". A vote either way would leave open the possibility of
either "Cinnamon Tyrant" or "Cinnamon Manakin-Tyrant".
2/6/06: "A" did not pass. Voting on "187B" thus
begins.
[Voting on the second vote (B): A "Yes" vote would be to
supplant either "Cinnamon Tyrant-Manakin" or "Cinnamon Neopipo",
depending on outcome of first vote, with "Cinnamon Tyrant". A
"No" vote would be to retain the then current name. A vote either way
would leave open the possibility of "Cinnamon Manakin-Tyrant".
Voting on the third vote (C): A "Yes" vote would be to
supplant "Cinnamon Tyrant-Manakin", "Cinnamon Neopipo" or
"Cinnamon Tyrant" with "Cinnamon Manakin-Tyrant". A
"No" vote would be to retain the then current name.]
In summary, for the first round of votes, vote on proposal A
above. Subsequent rounds will consider B and C.
Thomas
Donegan, 28 October 2005
Addendum from Remsen: Gill and Wright (2006) use
"Cinnamon Neopipo."
________________________________________________________________________________________
187-A: Change
name of Neopipo cinnamomea to "Cinnamon Neopipo"
Comments from Remsen on 187-A: "NO, for reasons
presented by Donegan. Additionally, creating new English names from genus names
is only a 'last resort' measure, in my opinion, if no other solution can be
found."
Comments from Zimmer: "NO". I realize that we
are voting specifically on the name "Cinnamon Neopipo", but I would
just add that I really don't have a problem with continuing to call it a
Cinnamon Tyrant-Manakin even though it is not a manakin (we still call Chordeiles
Nighthawks and some Sturnella Meadowlarks, and yes, I get the
distinction of having a hyphenated group-name). At least that name is distinct,
as opposed to just another Tyrant or Flycatcher."
Comments from Robbins: "NO. Ever since Mobley and
Prum's (1995) paper I have supported an English name change for Neopipo
cinnamomea. Clearly, the current English name is not appropriate. It is
unfortunate that Ridgely and Greenfield (2001) and Hilty (2003) did not follow
M & P's quite reasonable suggestion of "Cinnamon Tyrant". I feel
that is the most appropriate name and the fact that M & P, who clarified
the relationships of this taxon, suggested the name is all the more reason to
follow their suggestion. I vote "no", in the hope that we will consider
option B."
Comments from Stiles: "NO. Kevin has a good point,
and there is the additional consideration that until M&P, Neopipo was generally considered to be a
manakin such that most literature references using the English name would be
found under "Manakin" (and those using the family name as well), such
that the hyphenated name would help to call attention to this.
"We could establish a principle here (or better, formalize
what appears to be the informal consensus on such things): where the English
name of a bird contains the names of two different groups separated by a hyphen
(e.g., tit-tyrant, wagtail-tyrant) , the name of the SECOND group is that to
which the bird actually belongs, while the FIRST name is that of the group
which the bird resembles or with which it has been confused. Thus,
"Manakin-Tyrant" for Neopipo (it´s a tyrant that had been considered
a manakin) and "Tyrant-Manakin" for Neopelma (it´s a manakin that
looks like a tyrant). Cases like "bush-tyrant" don´t enter, they are
merely adjectives referring to some attribute and since adjectives precede the
noun in English anyway, no ambiguity is created ("tyrant-bush" could
only be interpreted as a particularly thorny member of the vegetable kingdom,
not a bird). Hence, I also will hold out for "Manakin-Tyrant". (If
this one flies, we should perhaps check through the list for consistency on
this point)."
Additional comments from Donegan: "Not noted in
the proposal but for completeness: Tyrant-Manakin is the English name for the
Neopelma (Pipridae), which could be considered confusing if used for a
Tyrannid. Using either 'Tyrant' or 'Manakin-Tyrant' would circumvent this as an
issue."
Comments from Pacheco: "YES. Em vista do uso prévio
de Tyrant-Manakin para Neopelma, eu considero conveniente dentre as
diversas e disputadas possibilidades a alteração para "Cinnamon
Neopipo."
=========================================================================
187-B.
Change name of Neopipo cinnamomea to "Cinnamon Tyrant"
Comments from Remsen on 187-B: NO. I like "Tyrant-Manakin"
to preserve the "error" and the continuity (vs. just
"Tyrant") [holding out for "Manakin-Tyrant" on 187-C]."
Comments from Zimmer: "NO. I'm holding out for
"Cinnamon Manakin-Tyrant", and I think Gary made a good point about formalizing
the convention of putting the correct group name last in one of these compound
group names."
Comments from Jaramillo: "YES - I like the simplicity
of Cinnamon Tyrant, I would like to avoid hyphenated names if at all possible.
The fact that the HBW uses this name means that in a sense it is a world wide
standard now and the most stable choice in my mind is to go with Cinnamon
Tyrant."
Comments from Pacheco: "NO. Mantendo a coerência na minha opinião precedente, voto
não."
Comments from Schulenberg: "YES. I can't grasp why
anyone would want to preserve any permutation of "tyrant-manakin" or
"manakin-tyrant".
"We all are in agreement that Neopipo is a tyrannid.
"Neopipo looks like
a tyrannid.
"Although Neopipo does not look like a manakin, in the
past it was classified as such (Why? As far as I can tell [Snow, 1975, BBOC 95:
21], primarily on the basis of tarsal scutellation and foot structure,
characters that have not been given any weight in tyrannoid classification for
decades)
"But even though Neopipo was classified in the past as
a manakin it was recognized that it didn't look anything like a manakin; hence
the need for the name "Cinnamon Tyrant-Manakin"
"So why preserve "manakin" in the name in any form?
Neopipo looks nothing like a manakin (and no one ever has thought that
it did). Retaining "manakin" in any form in the name, then, is ...
what? A tribute to the exaspidean form of tarsal scutellation? (Who cares?) A
tribute to the long legacy of inaccurate classifications based on trivial
characters with little or no phylogenetic content?
"Neopipo" also strikes me a dumb name, since it
tells us ... exactly nothing about what the bird is.
I don't see any problem with "Cinnamon Tyrant". Neopipo
is cinnamon, it is a tyrant. The risk of confusion with "Cinnamon
Attila" or "Cinnamon Flycatcher" seems trivial to me (and seems
to me to be much less than the risk if confusing "Manakin-Tyrant"
with "Tyrant-Manakin").
========================================================
187-C [if 187-B
does not pass]:
Comments from Nores on 187-C: "YES. Yo estoy de acuerdo con Stiles que, en los nombres
compuestos separados por un guion, el segundo nombre indique la familia a la
que pertenece la especie y el primero a la que recuerda. Pienso que en ese
aspecto hay que uniformar, a pesar de que haya que crear algunos nombres nuevos."
Comments from Schulenberg: "NO [see above].
Comments from Remsen on 187-C: "YES. But with little
enthusiasm for a name that I regard as the least-noxious of the three choices.
As for Tom's point about it looking "nothing like a manakin",
one could argue that it was more than just tarsal scutellation
that allowed Neopipo to reside comfortably in Pipridae for most of a
century in terms of bill shape, size, and vaguely Heterocercus-like
plumage. The reason I like preserving the "manakin" part of the name
is to remind of us the error, not preserve it per se. Hyphenated English names
are more frequent in the Tyrannidae than in any other family, and so adding
another doesn't bother me."
Comments from Stiles: "YES. I´ll reiterate my vote
for "manakin-tyrant" (arguments given in the previous melee)"