<p> Change English names in Muscisaxicola griseus and M. alpinus</p><p>Proposal (447) to South American Classification Committee</p><p>Chesser (2000) found that broadly defined Muscisaxicola alpinus was a paraphyletic species: the alpinus group of Colombia and Ecuador and the subspecies griseus, of Peru and Bolivia, are not sister taxa (Note 102). The English name “Plain-capped Ground-Tyrant” was used for broadly defined M. alpinus by Meyer de Schauensee (1966) and all subsequent references. Thus, a new English name was needed for the “new” species, griseus.</p><p>Rather than create a new name for griseus, Ridgely and Greenfield (2001) coined a new name for M. alpinus “Paramo Ground-Tyrant” but retained “Plain-capped Ground- Tyrant” M. griseus, and this has been followed by Gill and Wright (2006). To retain the long-standing association between alpinus and the Plain-capped, Dickinson (2003) retained Plain-capped for narrowly defined M. alpinus and coined “Taczanowski's Ground-Tyrant” for M. griseus in honor of the person who described the taxon. The current SACC classification followed Dickinson, as have HBW and Birds of Peru (Schulenberg et al.).</p><p>This proposal is to change the English names to follow Ridgely-Greenfield names.</p><p>Recommendation: We recommend a NO on this proposal (thus continuing to use SACC names) primarily because the Ridgely-Greenfield names unfortunately cause confusion by using the name “Plain-capped” for griseus even it was alpinus that had been called Plain-capped name in all literature 1966 to 2001.</p><p>[The various merits of the names themselves with respect to the taxa are not the catalyst for the proposal. “Paramo” is a good habitat-based name for alpinus, and “Taczanowski’s is an appropriate name that recognizes an important figure in Peruvian ornithology and the person who described the species.]</p><p>References: see SACC Biblio site.</p><p>Richard E. Gibbons and Van Remsen, August 2010</p><p>======</p><p>Comments from Stotz: “NO The switchover of Plain-capped from alpinus to griseus is a problem, but so is the retention of Plain-capped for a narrower alpinus. Normally (but not always) we change the English name when there is a significant change in the taxon in question. In this case because of the two different solutions to the name issue developed by Ridgely and Greenfield, and by Dickinson, we have a solution that doesn’t require us developing a new name for either taxon: we call griseus Taczanowski’s Ground-Tyrant and alpinus Paramo Ground-Tyrant.”</p><p>Comments from Robbins: “NO. Changing the name would cause further confusion, and as the proposal indicates, we have appropriate English names.”</p>