Proposal (904) to South
American Classification Committee
Establish
new English names for Herpsilochmus
frater and Herpsilochmus
rufimarginatus
Effect on SACC: This would create new
English names for the two species resulting from the split of Herpsilochmus rufimarginatus, when we
voted to treat the nominate subspecies H.
r. rufimarginatus as specifically distinct from all other subspecies (frater has priority) in the complex; see
SACC 870 for details.
Background: Part B of Proposal 870A raised the issue of
English names for the two species resulting from the split of H. rufimarginatus. As noted therein, retaining “Rufous-winged
Antwren” as the stand-alone English name for one of the two daughter species
should not be viewed as an option, given that our standard procedure is to
create new names for each daughter species, and, that I don’t think either the
“relative range size” or “differential usage” arguments are strong enough in
this case to warrant an exception to our English naming guidelines. Although the geographic range of frater (including subspecies exiguus) is significantly larger than
that of rufimarginatus, the latter is
arguably more common and familiar over its still rather extensive latitudinal
range than the former is over much of its range (e.g. it is a rather uncommon
and patchily distributed bird over much of the Amazon Basin).
Boesman,
in the Proposal 870A, did suggest that retaining “Rufous-winged Antwren” as a
shared group name for frater and rufimarginatus, was desirable, since
these are the only Herpsilochmus
species with rufous in the wing. This
was the strategy employed by del Hoyo & Collar (2016), who used “Northern
Rufous-winged Antwren” for frater,
and “Southern Rufous-winged Antwren” for rufimarginatus. Others have advocated using “Western
Rufous-winged Antwren” for frater + exiguus + “scapularis” (from N of rio São Francisco), and either “Eastern” or
“Atlantic” Rufous-winged Antwren for rufimarginatus
+ “scapularis” (from S of rio São
Francisco). Besides creating the kind of
boring, bulky, compound names that few like and many despise, neither of these
sets of names are ideal, because, as Nacho pointed out, the ranges of the two
species overlap one another in latitude and longitude, rendering almost any
geographic modifiers as non-exclusive at best, and confusing at worst.
As
has been pointed out by Nacho, and others, the two species of “Rufous-winged
Antwrens” are most obviously distinguished from one another by their songs,
which led Nacho to suggest the names “Churring Rufous-winged Antwren” for frater, and “Piping Rufous-winged
Antwren” for rufimarginatus. A couple of us expressed support for using
modifiers such as “Churring” and “Piping” (with, or without the hyphenated
group name of “Rufous-winged”) that allude to the vocal distinctions between
the two species, although, as Tom noted, neither of those names (especially
“Piping”) really captures the vocal quality of either species. I’ve spent some time thinking about different
modifiers that would more accurately describe the vocal differences, and
haven’t come up with anything better.
One reason not to construct names based upon vocal differences is out of
concern that frater could ultimately
prove to include more than one species, resulting in a three-species treatment
in which English names based upon vocal differences could be rendered confusing
or meaningless.
Recommendation:
Meanwhile,
after mulling all of this over a fair bit, I have come around to the idea of
formulating new names that reflect the distinctive rufous panel in the wings
common to both species, and skipping the hyphenated group-name. I would suggest the following novel names,
any of which could be fairly applied to either frater or rufimarginatus:
1)
Rusty-winged
Antwren (Nacho had previously suggested this as an alternative for frater).
2)
Ferruginous-winged
Antwren
3)
Blaze-winged
Antwren
I
like the idea of using “Blaze-winged” for one of the taxa, even though it
doesn’t refer specifically to the rufous color of the wing-panel. One of the many dictionary meanings of
“blaze” is “a very bright display of light or color”, and that would certainly
apply to the eye-catching rufous wing panel of these birds. I also like that it is a more novel name (we
do have a Blaze-winged Parakeet in our domain, and invokes the wing panel
without falling into the confusing hairsplitting of “rusty” versus “rufous”
versus “ferruginous” trap.
Given
the complexities of this case, and the desire to move this along, I would
suggest that we go with ranked-choice voting, as we have done with a few other
English name Proposals recently.
Therefore, voting members should rank each option 1-2-3-4-5, with 1
being the favored option. I assume that
anyone voting for “something” + the compound group name of “Rufous-winged
Antwren” as their 1st choice for one of the taxa would do the same
for both taxa. In the event that the compound
group names win out, then that will necessitate a follow-up Proposal to vote on
the modifiers (fingers crossed that doesn’t happen!).
Herpsilochmus frater:
Option 1a: Rusty-winged Antwren
Option 1b: Ferruginous-winged Antwren
Option 1c: Blaze-winged Antwren
Option 1d: Churring Antwren
Option 1e: “something”
(Western/Northern/Churring/something else) Rufous-winged Antwren
Option 1f: something else (e.g., Rusty-margined: see Lane comments)
Herpsilochmus
rufimarginatus:
Option 2a: Blaze-winged Antwren
Option 2b: Ferruginous-winged Antwren
Option 2c: Rusty-winged Antwren
Option 2d: Piping Antwren
Option 2e: “something”
(Eastern/Atlantic/Southern/Piping/something else) Rufous-winged Antwren
Option 2f: Rufous-margined Antwren
Literature cited:
del
Hoyo, J., Collar, N.J. (2016). HBW and
BirdLife International illustrated checklist of the birds of the world. Volume 2:
Passerines. Lynx Edicions,
Barcelona.
Kevin J. Zimmer,
January 2021
Postscript from Remsen: The results of the ranked choice voting yield the following winners:
H. frater: 1a. Rusty-winged Antwren
H.
rufimarginatus: 2f. Rufous-margined Antwren
Comments
from Lane:
“None of the options provided really make me very
enthusiastic. Here are my top picks for the two daughter species:
“H. frater:
"Barking Antwren" or "Cackling Antwren" (two of its most
distinctive vocalizations are the bark and descending cackle calls which are unmatched
by other Herpsilochmus... I don't find "churring" to be a
particularly good descriptor of the vocalizations of this species, I'm
afraid). If voice-based names don't sit
well with committee members, how about "Circumbasin Antwren" (to
draw attention to its curious largely circum-Amazonian distribution)?
“H. rufimarginatus: To me the
obvious first choice is "Rufous-margined Antwren" as it is a direct
translation of the scientific name, and although similar to the previous name
for the combined species, is plenty distinct.”
Comments
from Stiles:
“Here, I like Dan´s suggestion of Rufous-margined for H. rufimarginatus –
it is accurate and goes with the Latin name, also retains some connection with
Rufous-winged, the former name for the species prior to the split. For frater, I prefer Rusty-winged over
Ferruginous-winged over any name based on vocalizations, which are decidedly
subjective (and if frater gets split later, and the vocalizations of the
taxa do not match, things could get confusing). Least preferred: anything
combined with Rufous-winged for both.”
Comments
from Schulenberg:
“Herpsilochmus frater:
I rate these (descending order of preference) as
1
Rusty-winged Antwren
2
Ferruginous-winged Antwren
3
Blaze-winged Antwren
4 Churring
Antwren
5
"something" (Western/Northern/Churring/something else) Rufous-winged
Antwren
6 something
else (e.g., see Lane comments)
Herpsilochmus rufimarginatus:
1
Rufous-margined Antwren
2 Piping
Antwren
3
Blaze-winged Antwren
4
Ferruginous-winged Antwren
5
Rusty-winged Antwren
6
"something" (Eastern/Atlantic/Southern/Piping/something else)
Rufous-winged Antwren
Comments
from Stiles:
“E-names for Herpsilochmus spp. I would suggest reworking the lists of
suggested names including “Rufous-margined” for rufimarginatus to
facilitate things, perhaps omitting from the lists the “something
Rufous-winged”, which most disliked in any case.”
Comments
from Jaramillo:
“See below for my top choices. Rusty-winged is
confusingly similar to Rufous-winged, but I think that is OK in this situation.
Mentally it may invoke the right looking bird if you were previously used to
Rufous-winged. So that is good for the field observer. Blaze-wing is memorable,
unique, I like it.
Herpsilochmus frater: Option
1a: Rusty-winged Antwren
Herpsilochmus rufimarginatus: Option
2a: Blaze-winged Antwren
Comments from Donsker: “Here's how I would rank vote them:
Herpsilochmus frater:
1. Rusty-winged Antwren (1a)
2. Ferruginous-winged Antwren (1b)
3. Blaze-winged Antwren (1c)
4. Rusty-margined Antwren (1f)
Herpsilochmus rufimarginatus:
1. Rufous-margined Antwren (2f)
2. Rusty-winged Antwren (2c)
3. Ferruginous-winged Antwren (2b)
4. Blaze-winged Antwren (2a)
“I'm not fond of using the vocal alternatives or
"Something" Rufous-winged Antwren.”
Comments
from Stiles:
“Here are my choices:
for frater: 1-Rusty-winged
(1a); 2.5-Rusty-margined (1f), 2.5-Ferruginous-winged (1b); 4-Blaze-winged (1c);
5-Churring (1d); 6-compound name (1e)
for rufimarginatus:
1-Rufous-margined (2f); 2.5-Ferruginous-winged (2b); 2.5-Blaze-winged (2a);
4-Rusty-winged (so as to not conflict with this as my first choice for frater)
(2c) ; 5-Piping (2d); 6-compound name (2e).
“I definitely would dump the compound names, and the
vocalization-type names seem too subjective. Ferruginous-winged seems a bit
clunky and Blaze-winged to me seems more to indicate a flash of color when the
wings are opened.”
Comments from Jaramillo: “See below for my top choices.
Rusty-winged is confusingly similar to Rufous-winged, but I think that is OK in
this situation. Mentally it may invoke the right looking bird if you were
previously used to Rufous-winged. So, that is good for the field observer.
Blaze-winged is memorable, unique, I like it.
Herpsilochmus frater:
Option 1a: Rusty-winged Antwren
2. Blaze-winged Antwren (1c)
3. Ferruginous-winged Antwren (1b)
4. Rusty-margined Antwren (1f)
Herpsilochmus rufimarginatus:
Option 2a: Blaze-winged Antwren
2. Rusty-winged Antwren (2c)
3. Ferruginous-winged Antwren (2b)
4. Rufous-margined Antwren
Comments
from Zimmer:
“Here’s how I would rank the proposed English names:
Herpsilochmus frater:
1. Rusty-winged Antwren (1a)
2. Blaze-winged Antwren (1c)
3.
Ferruginous-winged Antwren (1b)
4. Rusty-margined Antwren (1f)
Herpsilochmus rufimarginatus:
1. Blaze-winged Antwren (2a)
2. Rufous-margined Antwren (2f)
3. Ferruginous-winged Antwren (2b)
4. Rusty-winged Antwren (2c)”
Comments
from Lane:
“For H.
frater (ranked from top choice down):
1. Rusty-winged Antwren
2. Ferruginous-winged Antwren
3. Barking/Cackling Antwren
4. Blaze-winged Antwren
5. Churring Antwren
“For H. rufimarginatus:
1. Rufous-margined
Antwren
2.“something”
(Eastern/Atlantic/Southern/Piping/something else) Rufous-winged Antwren
3. Piping
Antwren
4.
Rusty-winged Antwren
5.
Ferruginous-winged Antwren
6. Blaze-winged
Antwren
“’Blaze-winged’ to me suggests a white or fiery-colored
(yellow, red, orange) patch in the wing, which neither daughter species has,
and so it's a bit misleading.”