In a message dated 8/8/00 4:22:41 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
nyneve at u.washington.edu writes:

> i just found on the web in the ADF&G wildlife notebook series that
> the gray-headed chickadee's common name was recently officially changed
> to siberian tit. is this true? if so, who monitors the common names
> of species and where so they publish their papers?

Other way around. The bird was long known as the Siberian Tit but had its
common name changed to reflect is closer relationship to the North American
chickadees than to the Eurasian tits. I believe this was done at or around
the same time that it was transferred to the genus _Poecile_.

> i also assume that the chestnut-backed chickadee, Poecile rufescens,
> has not had a gender-related name change in the species name (my latin
> is rusty and my greek is almost non-existent now, however, it appears
> to me that the species name is not genderized for this species).

Correct. The adjective "rufescens" has the same form (in the singular,
anyway) for all three genders.

Later,
Nick Pharris
Olympia, WA
NJPharris at aol.com