Standardized English and Scientific Names of the Birds of the Indian Subcontinent 2004
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STANDARDISED COMMON AND SCIENTIFIC NAMES OF THE BIRDS OF THE INDIAN SUBCONTINENT – Ranjit Manakadan & Aasheesh Pittie Standardized English and scientific names of the birds of the Indian subcontinent 2004 By Ranjit Manakadan & Aasheesh Pittie 1 STANDARDISED COMMON AND SCIENTIFIC NAMES OF THE BIRDS OF THE INDIAN SUBCONTINENT – Ranjit Manakadan & Aasheesh Pittie PREFACE “In 1990 the International Ornithological Congress, in its search for agreement for a standardized, worldwide list of English common names for birds, decided to use ‘Distribution and Taxonomy of Birds of the World’ by C.G. Sibley and B.L. Monroe as a basis for discussion” (Pittie & Robertson, 1993). Realising the import of this decision, Andrew Robertson and I compiled a small booklet, Nomenclature of Birds of the Indian Sub-continent. A Review of Some Changes Taking Place, which was published in 1993 by the now defunct Ornithological Society of India. In it were listed and English and Scientific names extant at that time in India, and those that were being proposed by Sibley & Monroe (1990). The book did not find much favour among Indian ornithologists and I was in fact once accused of trying to upset the apple cart of English bird names by introducing new ones! Since then, the Oriental Bird Club (OBC) came out with their Annotated Checklist (Inskipp et al, 1996), Grimmett, Inskipp and Inskipp with Birds of the Indian Subcontinent in 1998, and Kazmierczak with his “Field Guide” in 2000. All these books had new English names with which Indian birdwatchers were totally unfamiliar. In our Nomenclature book, Andrew and I made two remarkably dichotomous statements. “Birds are no respecters of our artificial political boundaries, and calling them by different names in different countries should not become an issue of nationalism. It hinders ornithology generally and leads birdwatchers into confusion” and, “Common names...in any language but most importantly in English, are largely governed by traditional usage, differing from place to place, and by subjective opinion and personal preference.” That book gently nudged the Indian birdwatcher towards preparing himself for the impending changes in the forthcoming field-guides, “we will be better able to make good use of them (the new names) if already at least partly adjusted to changes that have taken place.” Now I disagree. Who does the standardized, worldwide list of English bird names benefit? It is definitely useful to the globetrotting birdwatcher, which tribe increases daily—indeed a good thing. These people prefer books with standardized bird names so that during their travels, there will be no confusion about the English name of a species. But, as everybody knows, there is already a fine system in place to do just that, the Linnaean system of nomenclature, with its unique arrangement of binomial scientific names of birds. To say that those who bird-watch for joy do not really care about the scientific name is to simplify the issue into negation. Change that benefits everybody is good. But change for the sake of change is another thing. The globalisation of bird names impoverishes the unique culture, history, character and literature, the very fabric, of a nation’s ornithological history. Indian English names of birds are as cherished by us as are American English names by the Americans and UK English names by the British. Ultimately a lot of confusion has resulted from these changes and papers are submitted to newsletters and journals with varying English names of birds. In view of this, the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), for long the only source of quality, authoritative ornithological literature in India, decided to bring out a standardized list of English bird names that could be used by Indian birdwatchers and institutions concerned with nature and nature conservation. The ENVIS Centre at BNHS was given this task and Ranjit Manakadan set about it in such a way that, ornithologists and birdwatchers across India were consulted, before the names were finalised. Inevitably, such an exercise requires the choosing of a single name from amongst various available. A difficult task for it does not necessarily please some. I added the complete scientific binomials to these names, realizing that this was an opportunity to put together a slim and portable ‘bare’ checklist of the birds of the Indian subcontinent. This list was published in Buceros the newsletter of the ENVIS Centre at BNHS (Manakadan & Pittie, 2001), of which some 400 copies were distributed to individuals and institutions. Since the publication of that paper, changes in scientific binomens have been suggested by David & Gosselin (2002) to ensure gender agreement of avian species names. Three taxa from the Indian list are affected at the specific level. These are: Small Blue Kingfisher Ceyx erithacus (Linnaeus, 1758), which must be spelt C. erithaca; Crimson- throated Barbet Megalaima rubricapilla (Gmelin, 1788), which must be spelt M. rubricapillus and, Brown Prinia Prinia criniger Hodgson, 1836, which must be spelt P. crinigera. Suitable adjustments have now been made in this list to accommodate these changes. Some value addition has also been done to the list being presented here. The threatened status of Indian birds (BirdLife International 2001) has been incorporated with suitable abbreviations and those endemic to India are also indicated. Species that are globally threatened or near-threatened are also marked, after Kazmierczak (2000) who follows Collar, et al (1994). For the efficacy of these English names it is necessary that they be circulated as widely as possible. Realising this, Mr Zafar Futehally, the editor of the Newsletter, readily allowed the use of this entire issue for this bare checklist so that it is made available to readers as a single document, for which Ranjit and I are both truly grateful. Aasheesh Pittie June 15, 2002 2 STANDARDISED COMMON AND SCIENTIFIC NAMES OF THE BIRDS OF THE INDIAN SUBCONTINENT – Ranjit Manakadan & Aasheesh Pittie REFERENCES BirdLife International (2001): Threatened Birds of Asia: The BirdLife International Red Data Book. Vol. 1. 2 vols. (Hardback) (Series Eds: Collar, N.J.; Andreev, A.V.; Chan, S.; Crosby, M.J.; Subramanya, S. & Tobias, J.A.) BirdLife International, Cambridge, UK. i-xxx, 1-1516 (ISBN 0 946888 42 6). BirdLife International (2001): Threatened Birds of Asia: The BirdLife International Red Data Book. Vol. 2. 2 vols. (Hardback) (Series Eds: Collar, N.J.; Andreev, A.V.; Chan, S.; Crosby, M.J.; Subramanya, S. & Tobias, J.A.) BirdLife International, Cambridge, UK. 1517-3038 (ISBN 0 946888 43 4). Collar, N.J.; Crosby, M.J. & Stattersfield, A.J. (1994): Birds to Watch 2, the World List of Threatened Birds. BirdLife International, Cambridge. David, Norman & Gosselin, Michel (2002): Gender agreement of avian species names. Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club 122(1): 14-49. Grimmett, Richard; Inskipp, Carol & Inskipp, Tim (1998): Birds of the Indian Subcontinent. Christopher Helm, London. Pp. 1-888 (ISBN 0 7136 4004 9). Inskipp, Tim; Lindsey, Nigel & Duckworth, William (1996): An Annotated Checklist of the Birds of the Oriental Region. Oriental Bird Club, Bedfordshire, U.K. Pp. 1-294. Kazmierczak, Krys (2000): A Field Guide to the Birds of India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and the Maldives. Om Book Service, New Delhi. Pp. 1-352 (ISBN 81-87107-04-9). Manakadan, Ranjit & Pittie, Aasheesh (2001): Standardised common and scientific names of the birds of the Indian subcontinent. Buceros 6(1): i-ix, 1-38. Pittie, Aasheesh & Robertson, Andrew (1993): Nomenclature of Birds of the Indian Sub-continent. A Review of Some Changes Taking Place. Ornithological Society of India, Bangalore. Pp. i-vi, 1-106. Sibley, Charles G. & Monroe, Burt L., Jr. (1990): Distribution and Taxonomy of Birds of the World. Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut. Pp. 1-1,111 (ISBN 0-300-04969-2). 3 STANDARDISED COMMON AND SCIENTIFIC NAMES OF THE BIRDS OF THE INDIAN SUBCONTINENT – Ranjit Manakadan & Aasheesh Pittie ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The staff of the ENVIS Centre, and especially Ranjit Manakdan, is grateful to all those who extended their help (or fired salvos of criticism that were put to good use!) to make the publication of this document possible. Most of them willingly gave their time, energy and patience in the ‘bird names exercises’ that started in 1998, and which culminated in this publication. They are as follows (in alphabetical order): Krys Kazmierczak, author of A Field Guide to the Birds of India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and the Maldives; Lalitha Vijayan, Ornithologist, Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology & Natural History; Lavkumar Khacher & Lalsinh M. Raol, Birdwatchers, Gujarat State, India; M.K. Himmatsinhji, Birdwatcher, Gujarat State, India; Mihir Devare, Birdwatcher, Maharashtra State, India; Pamela C. Rasmussen, formerly of the Smithsonian Institution, U.S.A; Rishad Naoroji, Ornithologist, India and author of the forthcoming Indian Birds of Prey; Saraswathy Unnithan, Scientist, BNHS; Shahid Ali, Ornithologist, Maharashtra State, India; Siraj A. Taher, Birdwatchers’ Society of Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh; S.W. Kotagama, Field Ornithology Group of Sri Lanka; Taej Mundkur, Wetlands International, Asia-Pacific and co-author Wetland Birds of Asia; Tim Inskipp, Oriental Bird Club, co-author An Annotated Checklist of the Birds of the Oriental Region and Birds of the Indian Subcontinent, T.J. Roberts, author Handbook of the Birds of Pakistan; T.W. Hoffmann, Ornithologist, Ceylon Bird Club; and V. Santharam, Ornithologist, Madras Naturalists Society, Chennai, India. During the finalisation of the document, ENVIS took the help of BirdLife International, U.K. Asia Division, Cambridge and we especially thank Martin Sneary, Information Officer, Alison Stattersfield, Global Species Programme Coordinator, Mark Balman, Database Support Analyst and Mike Crosby, Research and Database Manager for sending us BirdLife’s World Bird Checklist, and also clarifying many of our doubts on some cases of ‘splits’ and ‘lumps’ in avian taxonomy that had been slowing down our work.