Thanks for the clarification, Stephen and Faye. I now understand the joking reference to Amerigo. I guess we could go with “Completely Black Crow” instead of "American Crow”. 😊
From: Stephen Chase via Tweeters
Sent: Sunday, June 23, 2024 11:01 AM
To: Bill Mowat
Cc: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: [Tweeters] Biggest Loser Thread Origin
Bill et al.,
The "Biggest Loser" reference was actually a reference to the upcoming name changes from the AOS removing epynomous names from birds - i.e. Wilson's Warbler, Cassin's Auklet, etc... Both Alexander Wilson and John Cassin will both have their names removed from a number of species. A comment was made that the 15th century explorer Amerigo Vespucci, who's name is the source for the term "America," would be the biggest loser of all, since dozens of birds have "American" in their name. That said, I have seen no suggestions that the term "American" is included in this proposal, so I assumed this comment was in jest.
Stephen
I think this thread from Wednesday originated from an article in the guardian about lost bird species, posted on Tuesday, 6/18.
Here’s the link to the article: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/17/birders-126-lost-bird-species-aoe
The article is about how there are several bird species (126?) that are not listed as extinct and yet have not been definitively observed for at least ten years.
I don’t understand the Amerigo Vespucci reference.
Best – Bill
_______________________________________________
Tweeters mailing list
Tweeters at u.washington.edu
http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters