Subject: common name of gray-headed chickadee changed?
Date: Aug 8 17:50:28 2000
From: Michael Hobbs - Hummer at isomedia.com


Deborah -

For North America, the American Ornithologist' Union sets the common names for
birds. Occasionally, they publish their Check-list, and periodically they
publish a Supplement in The Auk. Until the AOU publishes a Check-list or
Supplement with the changed name, a name-change is not official. The AOU
check-list committee (actually, "The Committee on Classification and
Nomenclature of the American Ornithologists' Union") evaluates current
published scientific papers in determining changes to be made to the list.
They therefore lag a little behind the most current published theories of
taxonomy.

According to the most recent publications by the AOU Check-list committee,
Poecile cincta is called the "Gray-headed Chickadee", and the Chestnut-backed
Chickadee is P. rufescens. A note under P. cincta states "Also known as
Siberian Tit or Siberian Chickadee". Notes like this tend to indicate that
published papers have used these names, but that they are not standard. The
AOU committee does not "like" common names indicating geography which does not
accurately describe a species' range. The Gray-headed has an almost
circum-polar distribution (missing only from North Atlantic regions), and hence
is far more widespread than just Siberia.

Note that the AOU only governs names in North America. In Europe a different
organization (or organizations) handles these duties. Thus, there are many
differences in the "standard" English names for many species -- i.e. our Loons
are their Divers. There are many fewer differences in binomials.

The American Birding Association (ABA) currently defers to the AOU on all
taxonomic and nomenclatural issues. The ABA, however, does independently
evaluate species' status in North America (and hence inclusion on various
lists).

== Michael Hobbs
== Washington Ornithological Society webmaster
== http://www.wos.org
== email: WOSweb at wos.org

----- Original Message -----
From: "Deborah Wisti-Peterson" <nyneve at u.washington.edu>
To: <tweeters at u.washington.edu>; "Deborah Wisti-Peterson"
<nyneve at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2000 4:21 PM
Subject: common name of gray-headed chickadee changed?


>
> hello tweets,
>
> and michael (who might know the answer to this question, too!),
>
> 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?
>
> 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).
>
> regards,
>
> Deborah Wisti-Peterson, Girl Scientist nyneve at u.washington.edu
> Department of Zoology, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash, USA
> Visit me on the web: http://students.washington.edu/~nyneve/
> <><><>Graduate School: it's not just a job, it's an indenture!<><><>
>
>