Proposal
(792.2) to South American Classification Committee
Establish English names for Thamnistes species (3)
The two previous attempts to establish English names
have produced stalemates that seem intractable within our informal English
names subcommittee, and from comments below, it’s pretty clear that a 2/3
majority is not achievable. Therefore,
to avoid further delay in implementing this split, I am going to try something
new, something that is guaranteed to produce a majority vote for one of the
three options (if everyone asked to vote does so). I am expanding the voting considerably to
include a number of individuals who have shown an interest in SACC English
names through their contributions, either proposals or comments, on previous
English name proposals, and their votes will be tallied as the come in for the
three leading options.
Option 1: compound names:
Thamnistes anabatinus Northern Russet-Antshrike
Thamnistes rufescens Southern Russet Antshrike
Option 2: retaining the traditional parental name
for one of the daughters and coining a new one for one of the daughters:
Thamnistes anabatinus Russet Antshrike
Thamnistes rufescens Rufescent Antshrike
Option 3: new names for both daughters by
resurrecting an old one and coining a new one:
Thamnistes anabatinus Tawny Antshrike
Thamnistes rufescens Rufescent Antshrike
The pros and cons of each option are tediously
explicated in the two previous iterations – see below. I see no point in restating these, but if you
have something new to add, please do.
Note that Thamnistes anabatinus is really a
NACC bird, so in the end, I think they should have the say over that name.
Van Remsen, July 2020
Note from Remsen (Nov. 2020): the majority
of respondents favored Option 2, so I am going to consider Option 2 as the one
SACC will adopt.
SACC:
Hilty: Option 2
Jaramillo: Option 2
Remsen: Option 3
Schulenberg: Option 2
Stiles: Option 3
Stotz:
Whitney: Option 2
Zimmer: Option 3
Others:
Don Roberson: Option 1 (Despite my generalized dislike for
compound names, I vote for Option One, with hyphens. I generally prefer English names that are
short and memorable. The “Russet Antshrike” part is already memorable, but
learning two new names of similar colors will surely be confusing. I’m also
swayed by the potential split, and rather like Napo Russet-Antshrike as a
potential third name, as suggested by someone below.)
Rich Hoyer: Option 3 (Both getting new names and no clunky
hyphenated group names. The knowledge that there was once a Russet Antshrike
will be quaint trivia a few decades from now.”)
Dan Lane: Option 3 (My first choice of English names for the
two Thamnistes following the split would be:
T. anabatinus: Russet Antshrike
T. rufescens: Rufescent Antshrike
In agreement with the assessments of
others, the strongly unbalanced distributional areas and the fact that records
of T. anabatinus far outweigh those of T. rufescens combine to
make it clear that retaining the name "Russet" for the anabatinus
group is the best course of action for now, with the possibility that an
additional split may require another change in the future. In any event, I am
not a fan of "Northern and Southern Russet-Antshrikes" because I find
such names uninteresting, cumbersome, and most importantly, remove the species
from being found under "Antshrike" in the indices of reference works,
which is no small consideration!)
Craig Caldwell: Option 2 (“Gill and Donsker (IOC) and Clements/eBird
have used them since they recognized the split, and I'm all for the benefits to
my fellow amateurs of having all the major taxonomic schemes use the same
names.”)
Gary Rosenberg: Option 1 (“1) I agree with others who have argued
that there is just too much of an established history for the common name
“Russet” - even if it is not the best or most accurate in matching colors. 2) I
am not the biggest fan either of making common names long, hyphenated names,
but using “Northern” and “Southern” will be self-explanatory and easy for
birders to incorporate into their thinking when it comes to common names -
especially in this case where there are natural northern and southern
populations . Creating two new names will be unnecessarily confusing. I can
attest that birders on tours HATE when names are changed that make things more
confusing”.)
Peter Kaestner: Option 2 (“Keeps the original name for the species
that is overwhelmingly observed (thanks Josh) and the newly-coined name
reflects the Latin moniker. I agree with
Alvaro that we don’t need to blindly follow the rule of not maintaining the
original name for a daughter species.”)
Steve Howell: Option 2 (“My choices
would be as follows, or the other way around (!) as there is no clear “winner”
here:
1. Russet
and Rufescent (if it looks like only 2 splits
will ever happen), and as done I think by IOC following the
recommendations in the Isler & Whitney paper. (But I really like Tawny,
it’s just a matter of “if not broken, don’t fix it” an adage of which Eisenmann
was utterly unfamiliar…) In cases with 2 allopatric non-migratory species, I
think keeping one name is OK (a la Red-eyed Vireos).
Thus, option 1a is also fine. Tawny
and Rufescent. BUT… if it looks like more
splits, Western, Eastern, Peruvian, or whatever could happen, then yes
to:
2. Northern
Russet Antshrike, Southern Russet Antshrike; remembering Russet Antshrike is
easier than new names (yes, new birders will never know the old names, but if
they are called “Northern” or whatever it will teach people there are related
species, since I doubt the present generation of eTards even looks at something
known as a genus”).
David Donsker: Option 2 (“For the reasons already stated by those who also favor this option”.)
Mort Isler: Option 2 (“for reasons that
others have stated, but I also agree with the reasoning for option 3, and it
was a tough choice. Option 1 is undesirable, particularly given evidence that
additional species splits may result from more information on the cis-Andean
populations”)
Mark Pearman: Option 2 (“… on the grounds of
maintaining the name Russet Antshrike for the well-known and endearing anabatinus, while I think
Rufescent is a reasonable name for rufescens reflecting the specific
name and plumage.”)
Marshall
Iliff: Option 2:
(I don't feel incredibly strongly about these, but I
would also vote for option 2:
Thamnistes
anabatinus Russet Antshrike
Thamnistes
rufescens Rufescent Antshrike
For
option 1, while I agree with what Gary writes, I think Northern Russet
Antshrike and Southern Russet Antshrike get pretty unwieldy.
In
many cases I would endorsed option 3, since you know I am a strong proponent of
new names for daughter species when a split occurs. I feel like I should lay
out my rationale and if my reasoning below makes sense and if SACC continues to
address English names, it may be worth considering if this might be an expanded
exception.
To
me it boils down to the probability that retention of a daughter name will
generate confusion and (in my world at eBird) resultant data entry error.
Giving
separate names for daughter taxa causes a bit of early confusion and then
birders, fields guides etc. adapt. Canyon and California Towhees were far
better than arbitrarily retaining Brown Towhee for one of the parents. This is
especially important when multiple taxa are split out, so retiring the names
Paltry Tyrannulet and Blue-crowned Motmot and reserving them for the entire
species complex is ideal. It has been great to see this philosophy increasingly
engrained in comments by SACC and NACC. It has been good also to see this
formally enshrined for NACC and (maybe?) SACC: https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCprop857.htm
However,
we all recognize that this need not be taken to a ridiculous extreme. When the
Andaman population of Barn Owl is split out as Andaman Masked-Owl Tyto deroepstorffi https://ebird.org/species/barowl5, we need not require that Barn Owl change its name.
Nor did recognition of Hispaniolan Crossbill really mean that White-winged
Crossbill needed a name change.
The
current SACC proposal gets at this -- https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCprop857.htm and states:
1.1.a.
Relative range size. In many cases, relative range size is an excellent proxy
for the differential effect of a name change. When one or more new daughter
species are essentially peripheral isolates or have similarly small ranges
compared to the other daughter species, then the parental name is often retained
for the widespread, familiar daughter species to maintain stability. For
example, the English name Red-winged Blackbird was retained for the widespread
species Agelaius phoeniceus when the Cuban subspecies A. phoeniceus assimilis
was elevated to species rank, and a novel English name (Red-shouldered
Blackbird) was adopted only for the daughter species A. assimilis.
1.1.b.
Differential usage. In some cases, a name is much more associated with one
daughter species regardless of relative range size. For example, the name
Clapper Rail has been consistently associated with birds of the eastern US and
Caribbean for over a century, whereas populations in South America and in the
western US and Mexico were known by various other names before being grouped
under the name Clapper Rail. In this case, despite the extensive range of the
South American daughter species (Rallus longirostris), the name Clapper Rail
was retained for eastern North American daughter species (R. crepitans) when
the species was split into three, with Mangrove Rail applied to the daughter in
South America and Ridgway's Rail to that in the southwestern US and adjacent
Mexico (R. obsoletus).
My
reason for being willing to retain Russet Antshrike for one daughter here is
that in terms of English usage, the distribution is highly asymmetrical -- so
it is sort of a hybrid of 1.1a and 1.1b above. I would argue that there is much
more engrained English usage in the multiple English language field guides
(Mexico, Central America, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador) within the
range of Thamnistes anabatinus than
for Thamnistes rufescens (Peru,
Bolivia). I also would say that the English speakers who might use English
names in Peru and Bolivia--primarily tour participants and savvy independent
travelers--are more well-versed in how taxonomy and nomenclature are shuffling
around and also more likely to use the scientific name (which, of course, is
even worse, since retention of a parental name is required!). So in the end, I
see very little problem in retaining Russet for the northern birds in a zone
where English names are more widely used and in more contexts (at least
measured by number of field guides). To me this is akin to the split of Gray
Hawk and Gray-lined Hawk, except that the recognition of the southern taxon
here is one with an even more restricted southern range.
Within
eBird, we see lots of data quality errors when people are persistently confused
by the English names. If the southern T.
rufescens were to get the name
Russet Antshrike, we'd end up with a data quality disaster as dozens/hundreds
of people would search for Russet Antshrike in Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama etc.
and enter it, not knowing that it referred to a species found only in Peru and
Bolivia. So for me, if observers are unaware of the split but correctly
identify it in their field guide, they are vastly more highly likely to land on
the right name if we retain Russet. We can actually measure this: eBird has
7395 records of Russet https://ebird.org/species/rusant1 compared to only 116 of Rufescent https://ebird.org/species/rufant12. If we removed Spanish speakers or highly advanced
users, such as members of SACC, I expect this ratio would be even more biased.
In my mind, the name change for daughter taxa is most important when the
correct English name will result in lots of errors, which would have been the
case if Hispaniola Crossbill had instead used White-winged Crossbill. To
illustrate continuing real-world problems, it was a mistake (in my view) to
retain Common Snipe for one of the two taxa in the New World-Old World split of
Gallinago gallinago and also to retain Audubon's Shearwater for the tiny
Caribbean isolate that was left after Persian, Barolo, Boyd's, Galapagos,
Tropical, and Bannerman's all got split out and given new English names.
The
original proposal https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCprop792.htm also points out that T. anabatinus sensu
stricto has a larger distribution, roughly twice the latitudinal distribution,
and contains 6 of the 7 named taxa.
So
I vote option 2:
Thamnistes anabatinus Russet Antshrike
Thamnistes rufescens Rufescent Antshrike
_____________________________________________________________________
Proposal
(792.1) to South American Classification Committee
Establish English names for Thamnistes species (2)
To begin with, the genus
Thamnistes has long
been treated as monospecific, and the name Russet Antshrike has been in
continuous universal use for ca. 70 years. SACC’s policy of retaining the
original name only for the broadly circumscribed species and coining or resurrecting
different names for the newly spit daughter species sometimes causes problems,
as in this case: the name Russet Antshrike is just too well established to
sweep under the rug. So, the alternative here would be to use it as a
genus-level name for Thamnistes
(with or without a hyphen) and add appropriate modifiers to its
newly-split progeny. Hence, two alternatives are as follows:
1. Use geography; the distribution of the taxa is pretty nearly
linear, which facilitates this. The northernmost populations (from Mexico to NW
Colombia) could be called Northern Russet-Antshrike. Newly split
rufescens could be
called either Southern or Peruvian Russet-Antshrike (virtually its entire range
falls within Peru). So, the options I propose are:
a. Northern and Peruvian Russet-Antshrikes, or
b. Northern and Southern Russet-Antshrikes
These alternatives leave open the possibility for adding similar
names for aequatorialis
and gularis
should these also be split. For the former, I’d suggest Ecuadorian
– although it also occurs widely in Colombia, this ties in with the Latin name,
possibly an advantage; an alternative could be Napo Russet-Antshrike. For
gularis, Perijá Russet-Antshrike would fit its apparently restricted
distribution.
2. Use color names. Thus, the northern group would become Tawny
Russet-Antshrike, rufescens
would become Rufescent Russet-Antshrike. This is clear enough,
although the juxtaposition of two different color names in the same English
names could well be a bit confusing. However, the situation becomes worse if
aequatorialis or
gularis also were
to be split. Here, the much-abhorred colorimetric hair-splitting would be
necessary in coining the required new names.
I therefore recommend alternative
1, and lean towards 1a with an eye to future contingencies.
Gary Stiles,
October 2018
Comments from Remsen: “NO on all. I don’t
like the compound names, and there are ways to avoid them, as in 790.0. Also, retention of the parental name “Russet”
for a daughter species is not justified, in my opinion. The northern taxon may be more familiar to
many, but rufescens has a large range, and thus we do not have, in my
opinion, sufficient asymmetry to justify retaining parental Russet in a
daughter name.”
Comments
from Schulenberg:
“NO. I don't like long compound names. And I don't
see anything wrong with Rufescent Antshrike for rufescens, and with retaining Russet Antshrike for anabatinus sensu stricto. The disparity
in the geographic ranges of the two is great enough that I'm not worried about
confusion after rufescens is carved
out - especially since, as noted previously, the form that is seen most often
anyway is the one that would retain the familiar name.”
Comments from Jaramillo: “NO. The proposal notes: ‘the name Russet Antshrike
is just too well established to sweep under the rug.’ I agree, so let’s keep
Russet Antshrike for anabatinus, and
create Rufescent Antshrike for rufescens.
Although it is great or a goal to avoid retaining a group name for one of the
daughter species, I don’t think it should be a rule. Sure, there is some
certain amount of confusion it causes. But on the other hand, we seem to deal
with it without much problem when dealing with scientific names. I mean Thamnistes
anabatinus means
something different before the split as opposed to after the split. Some of the
confusion will be temporary, but the benefit of keeping a well-established name
such as Russet Antshrike has great value. Avoiding a compound name also has
great value.”
Proposal
(792.0) to South American Classification Committee
Establish English names for Thamnistes species (1)
With passage of SACC proposal 758, we now recognize two
species of Thamnistes, based on Isler
and Whitney (2017). We haven’t
implemented the proposal because we need to establish English names for the two
newly delimited species.
Isler and Whitney (2017) recommended
retaining long-standing Russet Antshrike for T. anabatinus and Rufescent Antshrike for T. rufescens. The problem
with that is that our guidelines and those of NACC recommend new names for both
daughter species because retaining the parental name for one the daughters
creates obvious confusion as to what the shared daughter-parental name refers
to (in this case Russet Antshrike). This
is only a guideline, however, not a rule because in many such cases, one or
more of the daughters are peripheral isolates for which changing an established
name for the remainder of the widely occurring species creates unnecessary
instability. An extreme example within
the SACC area would be Vireo
gracilirostris, formerly considered a subspecies of Red-eyed Vireo. Rather than changing names to something like
“Common Red-eyed Vireo” and “Noronha Red-eyed Vireo”, the sensible pre-SACC
decision was to retain traditional Red-eyed for the widespread daughter and
call gracilirostris “Noronha
Vireo”. But what if the distributions
are not that asymmetric, as in the two Thamnistes?
Below is the distribution map from
Isler and Whitney (2017):
As can
be seen, T. anabatinus sensu stricto
has a larger distribution, roughly twice the latitudinal distribution, and
contains 6 of the 7 named taxa. So, the
distributions are asymmetric but not highly so.
However, taxonomic asymmetry is such that retaining Russet for T. anabatinus would mean that the
English names would remain stable for 6 of 7 taxa. However, whether cis-Andean aequatorialis belongs with anabatinus or merits species rank on its
own is nuclear; from Isler and Whitney:
“The status of aequatorialis is less clear. Maintenance as a subspecies is recommended on the grounds
that although elevating aequatorialis to species status might result from the acquisition and analysis of
additional data, later elevation is preferable to elevating it now and then
finding that additional data demands reducing it back to subspecies status.”
Also,
gularis was not sampled; presumably
it is more closely related to adjacent aequatorialis
than anything else. Thus, if
additional data show that aequatorialis (plus
gularis?) merit species rank, then the
asymmetry among the species disappears.
If we decide to go with new names for
both daughters, one option is to generate compound names, e.g. Something
Russet-Antshrike and Rufescent Russet-Antshrike. Compound names are generally unpopular,
however.
A third possibility would be to provide
a new name for T. anabatinus sensu
stricto. In my comments in the
original proposal, I suggested “Tawny Antshrike” as a possibility. This is actually the English name used by
Ridgway (1911) for nominate anabatinus
(Mexico through Nicaragua) and thus was “the” name used in English literature
from Mexico and n. Central America from Ridgway’s time through at least 1955,
when Eisenmann selected “Russet Antshrike” (used by Ridgway for T. a. saturatus) as the name for the
species as a whole. I’m not sure why he
did this except that saturatus occurs
in w. Panama, his country of interest.
In contrast, “Tawny” applied to the nominate subspecies, to the larger
part of the composite species range, and to a greater proportion of the plumage
area. To me, just looking at the
specimens photos (proposal 758) “tawny” seems at
least as appropriate if not better than “russet” for the species. Further, “Tawny” is especially appropriate as
a foil to “Rufescent”, which is distinctly “redder” overall.
Here is a photo of all our specimens,
“Tawny” on left (except for aequatorialis),
“Rufescent” on right:
Therefore, I propose “Tawny Antshrike”
for T. anabatinus. It avoids the problem of having a daughter
species carry the parental name, avoids a compound name, is arguably more
appropriate than Russet, and as a bonus revives a good name that was in use for
40 years and should have been the name chosen for the species if Eisenmann had
not had a Panama bias. A YES vote would
be for Tawny and Rufescent as the names for the two daughter species. A NO would be for something else, presumably
Russet and Rufescent, the choice of many of you in the informal discussions in
proposal 758.
Be sure to see others’ comments on
English names in proposal 758, especially Bret’s (in
defense of Russet) and Gary’s.
References:
EISENMANN, E. 1955. The
species of Middle American birds. Transactions Linnean Society New York 7: 1–128.
ISLER, M. L., and B. M.
WHITNEY. 2017. Species limits in the genus Thamnistes
(Aves: Passeriformes: Thamnophilidae): an evaluation based on vocalizations.
Zootaxa 4291 (1): 192–200.
RIDGWAY, R. 1911. The birds of North and Middle
America. Bulletin U.S. National Museum,
no. 50, pt. 5.
Van Remsen, June 2018
Comments
from Stiles:
“NO. For this
proposal, I suspect that "Tawny Antshrike" may upset too many apple
carts. Russet Antshrike has been in
continuous use since the 1950s in everything from technical literature to bird
guides to birders' notes from Mexico to Argentina. Although I rather like Tawny, I think that
Russet just has too much momentum to change. Given that the spit of rufescens from anabatinus
will be implemented by relatively few countries, I'd prefer to leave the rest
as Russet Antshrikes.”
Comments from Steve Hilty:
“Herewith some comments on the naming process, with Thamnistes as an example. What follows may strike some as lacking
innovation, but names should be easy to recall. Coining a unique new name for
every new taxon split and obsessively avoiding compound names does not produce
a set of names that are easy to recall and it is counterproductive. The
following sets out my argument.
“Yes, I agree (with Bret in SACC 758). “Why in the world would you want
to change a long established name like Russet Antshrike?” I also concur (with
Gary) that it is unnecessary to adhere to restrictive rules regarding changing
English names each time a taxonomic change occurs, especially when there are so
many parent-daughter splits that need attention. The SACC process of choosing English
names is somewhat cumbersome and often not particularly helpful to the few of
us involved with SACC who actually use English names on a regular basis.
“Here is one of the problems. I personally cannot retain fifteen or
twenty thousand (or more) unique and
often new English names in my head—and there will be more on the way every
week for the foreseeable future and beyond. I can, however, retain some small
fraction of that number and use them effectively with birding clients. In this
regard it helps considerably if, after a split or multiple splits occur, the
“mother” name is retained and simply modified with a relatively predictable
modifier such as Eastern, Western, Northern and so forth. This might or might
not involve a hyphen.
“So, is anybody actually doing this? Beyond the world of SACC, it may be
instructive to see what others on the planet are doing. All of you likely
already know that Lynx Edicions is embarking on an ambitious project to produce
compact bird guides for many or most countries around the world—and you can be
sure that sooner, rather than later, most South American countries will be
included. Lynx is highly efficient and excels at compiling and disseminating
vast amounts of information electronically and via hard copy, and they do it
quickly and accurately. They incorporate new genetic findings into their
taxonomy as it appears, but supporting genetic data tends to appear in fits and
starts and often glacially slow—and will certainly continue well beyond the
lifetimes of all of us at SACC and Lynx. Clearly Lynx clearly is not going to
wait that long.
“To this end Lynx utilizes a numerical taxonomy system, often maligned,
but in the end reaching conclusions not much different, and far more quickly
than others including SACC. What they don’t do is adhere to the almost
untenable goal of attempting to coin a new
unique English name for every split.
Whether one quibbles with numerical taxonomy or not, names need to be invented
on a timely basis with the goal of being
useful. Eugene Eisenmann faced this when he help Meyer de Schauensee
standardize South American bird names for the latter’s Red book (1966) and Blue
book (1970). Prior to that point names were all over the map. But Eisenmann
fell into the trap of trying to make as many names as possible descriptive by
using colors. It seems like a good idea—until you actually had to use these
confusing names—and now with hundreds of new taxa needing names every year it
is only getting more confusing. e.g. Rufous-fronted, Rufous-crowned, Rufous
naped, Rufous-cheeked, . . . and then start over with gray, or buff, or tawny,
or ochre or some other obscure color. We end up with 50 shades of gray (no pun
intended) on all kinds of birds, some related, some not, or 50 shades of rufous
and so on. And SACC is doing this all over again—Russet versus Rufescent versus
Tawny antshrike?
“I checked the species account on Lynx’s HBW Alive website for Russet
Antshrike. It is already split, although not exactly as SACC is doing. In fact,
when SACC splits out the aequatorialis group,
as they surely will in due time, SACC will have three species of Russet
Antshrikes (anabatinus, aequatorialis and rufescens),
whereas HBW has, at present at least, only two (anabatinus and aequatorialis),
in both cases based largely on numerical taxonomy. But—the key difference is in
the names. HBW simply names them Western Russet Antshrike (anabatinus) and Eastern Russet Antshrike (aequatorialis). If southern rufescens
gets split out (and I’m betting HBW will pick that up soon enough), then it
may well become, logically enough, Southern Russet Antshrike. It is all quick,
simple and very easy to remember. SACC could simply call rufescens the Southern Russet Antshrike. Leave the other name
alone. Then, if later on SACC splits out aequatorialis,
just add Western and Eastern to the
cis- and trans- forms and you’re done. No committee meetings necessary.
“Now, I also scanned through some of HBW Alive’s species accounts and
they have done this same thing over and over with new splits. Nearly always retaining the “mother” name and just
adding a modifier—most often a compass direction (Eastern, Western, Northern,
Southern, Central), occasionally a geographical region (Amazonian, Guianan,
Andean, Sierra Nevada, Rio Negro, Napo, Choco), country name (Costa Rican,
Colombian), a size difference (Greater, Lesser) and so on, but only very
infrequently a new color (Cerise, Violet, or something attention-getting). Yes,
the name might be a little longer. But why do we really care if the name is a
little longer? We should care more about if it is easily modified in the future
(no need for more round-table discussions), minimally confusing and especially
if it is easy to recall.
“For those of use that actually use English names in our professions
(that leaves out most SACC members), HBW’s naming system (if that is what it
is) greatly simplifies the process of recalling names—in other words if you can
remember the “mother” name you will also have a good idea of how six or eight
splits of that “mother” species filter out. SACC did this with the
warbling-antbird group and it worked well. SACC should employ this simplified
system more often. It is much easier to organize and recall the hundreds and
hundreds of names (soon to be thousands I fear) and the little bits of
taxonomic flotsam in the system if they are somehow connected, but also there
is another important reason why SACC should move in this direction and it
involves working at an international level with the goal of a single unified
English language name system.
“Lynx Edicions method of dealing with new names for birds is heavily
biased toward using a relatively small number of categories mentioned above
(especially compass directions) but the system makes recalling names easy. And,
like it or now, they are about to flood the planet with high quality bird
identification guides using their
illustrations and their names. In fact, they are already well on their way
with the completion of their remarkable handbook series, more recent checklist,
web sites and other works in process. SACC is producing, at great labor, a
unique and laudable, peer-reviewed system of taxonomy for South American birds,
but the burden of trying to coin new and
unique English names, by throwing away perfectly usable “mother” names every
time there is a taxonomic split is slow and cumbersome and counterproductive
for users of these names. In the end, SACC’s English names may not see much
daylight if major publishers of bird books don’t use them.”
Comments from Jaramillo: “NO. Although I hate long compound names, I do think that in this
case, the name "Russet Antshrike" should survive in some form.
Interestingly, the part that pops out from your specimen photos are the pale
bellies vs rufous bellies. But Pale-bellied Russet Antshrike may be too much
for some to swallow.
“Also, regarding Steve
Hilty's thoughts on recollection of names, I get it, it can be a bear to
remember new names. But then again, not insurmountable. But I would look longer
term. The only people who will have to recollect what is what are those in the
field today. The younger birders will just know the new name and have no idea
that it was called something else before. So, names that are just good,
descriptive, memorable, or what have you are best. Using northern or southern,
also assumes you know the entire avifauna and realize there is one to your
north or south that is related.”
Comments
from Stotz:
“YES. I think Tawny is a good, solid
name for the northern species. I prefer
it to a compound name version or keeping Russet for the northern birds. Part of this comes from the fact that I know Thamnistes from the fringe of Amazonia,
so Russet Antshrike is associated with those birds rather than the Central
American birds.”
Additional
comment from Remsen:
“Like Doug, “Russet Antshrike” has always referred to rufescens, and I for many years I was only barely aware that the
species also occurred as a pale-bellied ‘deviant’ form in Middle America. So, just as with “Slaty Thrush”, primary
association depends on one’s background.”
Comments
from Josh Beck:
“I think the argument for stability
should receive more weight in this case. My personal impression is that Russet
Antshrike (sensu lato) is far more commonly observed in Middle America and west
of the Andes than east of the Andes, so I took a quick look at raw data output
from eBird for the broader T anabatinus.
eBird has a bit over 6000 records of the species. There are no records of gularis, 128 records for rufescens, 247 records for aequatorialis, and 5841 records for the
trans-Andean forms (anabatinus
following this split). I can also count 15+ currently widely used field guides
that use the common name Russet Antshrike from Mexico to Ecuador. I also
personally don't see Tawny Antshrike as a particularly better or more memorable
name, just different, but will avoid the 50 shades of gray argument again.
Essentially, there are far more birders and national/regional guides that use
Russet Antshrike to refer to trans-Andean birds than cis-Andean and as a result
I am much in favor of one of the two options that retains Russet Antshrike as
an English name: A) keeping Russet Antshrike for anabatinus and giving rufescens
a unique name (Rufescent or other), or B) using compound names (Western
or Northern vs Southern Russet-Antshrike) if it is viewed as likely that there
will be further splits in the future.”
Comments from Zimmer:
“NO. I’m
really on the fence on this one. I would
start by saying that I think Josh Beck’s analysis is spot-on in that the name “Russet
Antshrike” is far more familiar and more often in use (in literature, eBird,
trip lists, etc.) with respect to the trans-Andean populations, particularly
from Middle America, so, it would be more painful to lose that name as applied
to those populations. However, as Van
points out, the modifier “Russet” is not especially descriptive of the anabatinus group, and his suggestion of
“Tawny” and “Rufescent” is actually more appropriate, even though I generally
have an aversion to hair-splitting color-based names for similar species in the
same genus/family. Although “Tawny” and
“Rufescent” are more descriptive, and attractively short and simple, the
downside is that adoption of those names puts us in a box if either aequatorialis or gularis (or both) get elevated to species-level at some point,
because coming up with English names for 1-2 additional taxa would put us back
into hair-splitting subtle color differences again. The same can be said for what would happen if
we retain “Russet” for 6 of the 7 taxa and coin “Rufescent” for rufescens, only to find out later that
we need one or more new English names for aequatorialis/gularis. For this reason, I think that using a
hyphenated group name of
“Russet-Antshrike” is the best way to go, because: A) it retains the history of “Russet
Antshrike”; B) it’s more informative; and C) it’s more flexible in allowing for
future splits without getting into confusing, color-based names. I realize that these longer, hyphenated names
are unpalatable to some of us, but in this case, I would join with Steve and
Bret in saying that I think it is the best of an imperfect bunch of choices.”
Additional comments from Remsen in
response to Hilty’s comments:
“Good points, Steve, but the landscape has changed with the partnership of
Cornell Lab of Ornithology (and thus Clements) with HBW/Lynx, so whether that
also means that Lynx publications with follow BLI names is uncertain,
especially those not yet published. Tom,
what do you know?”