BUBO Listing News
The recent round of updates for the Clements checklist, as published by Cornell, have now been incorporated in BUBO Listing. There were plenty of taxonomic updates, including 12 new species and no fewer than 74 different splits. Also major changes to family composition and sequencing.
Most world listers will find they can increase their list by applying these taxonomic updates! As usual you will be notified if any updates impact you, and you can view the updated Clements checklist in full.
UPDATE - we'd forgotten to split Water Rail and Brown-cheeked Rail, so you may get prompted again for another taxonomic check.
Following on from our recent updates to the Clements Checklist, we have now updated the IOC World List to the recently released v2.9. Of most interest to listers will be the 15 new species added:
- Tsingy Wood Rail Canirallus beankaensis
- Black-banded Fruit Dove Ptilinopus alligator
- Blue-moustached Bee-eater Merops mentalis
- Whitely's Toucanet Aulacorhynchus whitelianus
- Bronze-winged Woodpecker Colaptes aeruginosus
- Xingu Scale-backed Antbird Willisornis vidua
- Northern Fiscal Lanius humeralis
- Mexican Jay Aphelocoma wollweberi
- Montane Tiny Greenbul Phyllastrephus albigula
- Sakhalin Grasshopper Warbler Locustella amnicola
- Sao Tome White-eye Zosterops feae
- Philippine Magpie-Robin Copsychus mindanensis
- Orange-tufted Spiderhunter Arachnothera flammifera
- Pale Spiderhunter Arachnothera dilutior
- Masked Cardinal Paroaria nigrogenis
As always, BUBO Listing will alert you to any updates you need to make because of this. For details about how to do these, see how taxonomic updates are handled in BUBO Listing.
World listers will be pleased to hear that we have implemented all the recent updates to the Clements Checklist. There were many taxonomic changes, including several splits (especially amongst Asian babblers for example), a few lumps and many changes to the sequence of various passerine families.
As always, BUBO Listing will highlight any updates you need to make because of this. For details about how to do these, see how taxonomic updates are handled in BUBO Listing.
We have just launched the IOC World List on BUBO Listing. This has been requested by many BUBO Listers and we feel it is likely to be adopted by most as their preferred world listing authority. We have also included species distribution details for all species to make it easier to understand the taxonomic differences between this and the Clements World List.
If you already have a world list on BUBO Listing based on Clements it is very easy to convert this into an IOC one. Just use Create New List as normal and ensure you use the "Copy from existing list" option, and specify your Clements world list. Where possible we have mapped taxa between IOC and Clements so it is likely that more than 90% of your list copy will be automatic. Where taxonomic treatment differs you will need to add the appropriate IOC taxa manually, using Batch Edit or View/Edit Species under My Lists. We have enhanced the list copying so that those species that cannot be mapped automatically are emailed to you so it is easy to add them to your new IOC world list at your leisure.
Of course if you don't already have a Clements world list then just Create New List as normal and we suggest pouring yourself a drink as you begin the task of entering all your records! Naturally it takes a while for big world lists, but it is a fun job to do, interrupted by pleasant reminiscences of past birding trips worldwide!
We have also compiled a basic summary of the taxonomic differences between the Clements and IOC world lists.
We have just updated BUBO Listing to include the Clements updates from December 2009.
.jpg "White-capped Albatross (Thalassarche cauta)")
The number of updates was very large (one of the reasons it's taken us a while to implement them in BUBO!) Many changes referred to minor changes to English and/or scientific names. More significantly, there have been many changes to the family-level taxonomy of the passerines. Many new families have been created, and many species have been switched between families, almost all as a result of new discoveries from molecular biology. Simultaneously, the ordering of the families and species has seen major changes.
Note that this has been a complex procedure so please let us know ASAP if you see anything clearly wrong (e.g. a bulbul amongst the penguins - the taxonomic changes are often radical, but not that wacky!)
Of interest to many listers, there have also been a number of splits and lumps. Actually, the only real lumping is of Merida and Lara Tapaculos into a single species. In addition, Narosky's Seedeater is now considered only a colour morph of Marsh Seedeater, and Mascarene Shearwater is now included within the new grouping of small shearwaters known as Tropical Shearwater.
.jpg "Salvin's Albatross (Thalassarche salvini)")
On the other hand, splits have been announced of {number of new species in brackets}:
Speckled Teal (2), Shy Albatross (3), Tahiti Petrel (2), Little Shearwater (3), Audubon's Shearwater (2), Band-rumped Storm-petrel (3), Subantarctic Snipe (3), New Zealand Pigeon (3), Red-fronted Parakeet (2), Black-tailed Trogon (2), White-tailed Trogon (2), Violaceous Trogon (2), Scale-throated Earthcreeper (2), Red-eyed Thornbird (2), White-eyed Foliage-gleaner (2), Ruddy Foliage-gleaner (2), Greenish Warbler (2), Madagascar Brush-warbler (2), Red-flanked Bluetail (2), Littoral Rock-thrush (2), Dark-throated Thrush (2), Dusky Thrush (2), Spectacled Thrush (2), Blue-winged Leafbird (3), Golden-fronted Leafbird (2), Warbler Finch (2) and Common Redpoll (2)..jpg "Greenish Warbler (Phylloscopus trochiloides)")
.jpg "Green Warbler (Phylloscopus nitidus)")
[Note that a few of these splits will not appear as available to listers as they involve extinct forms]
For further details about how to update your Clements based lists, see how taxonomic updates are handled in BUBO Listing.