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Posted by steve siegel on 14:33:30 07/17/09
Back in the 18th century, the pompous French aristocrat Georges Le Clerc Count du Buffon was the European "authority" on newly discovered American birds. He made many mistakes, one of which was calling a Scarlet Tanager a Cardinal, because the specimen he received had its head feathers mussed up, looking like a crest. He became a laughing stock. Turns out he may have been right.
The equally pompous folks at the AOU have now declared that Tanagers are Cardinals!!! And I used to snicker at folks in the parks who called Moorhens "ducks". Maybe they are right too.
Here is the news item.
The American Ornithologists Union standardizes North American bird names, and their taxonomy based on various published studies. Each July, they publish a supplement describing changes made during the previous 12 months. The most recent changes include the removal of the tanagers of the genus Piranga from the tanager family (a large, mostly tropical family) Thraupidae. The Piranga species include Summer, Hepatic (western US), Scarlet, Western and Flame-colored (western US) tanagers that are familiar to many US birders. These species (and others in the genus), have been moved to the cardinal, grosbeak and bunting family, Cardinalidae! Other changes that will interest Floridians are changes in the names of the 2 sharp-tailed sparrow species; the sharp-tailed epithet has been dropped, and they are now known as Nelson s Sparrow and Saltmarsh Sparrow.
A summary of the latest (50th) AOU Checklist supplement can be found at:
http://djringer.com/birding/2009/07/11/aou-50th-supplement-taxonomic-and-nomenclatural-changes/
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