lpaul

It seems that the general view is that acceptance of the IOC list is OK except with regards to certain English names.
I think this is progress, and given that the HK list is rather out of date I am pleased that the aim of updating is accepted.
So, which are the name changes which are unacceptable?  If the HK list were to be revised based solely upon the IOC list, then this would result in a change in the English name for 51 species (10% of the list).  Of these 26 are required due to taxonomic changes (and these are required in order to update the HK list).  Of the remaining 25, three are very minor (the addition of a hyphen) and are presumably not controversial.

The rest are:
1.        Indian Spotbill to Indian Spot-billed Duck
2.        Chinese Spotbill to Eastern Spot-billed Duck
3.        Common Teal to Eurasian Teal
4.        Black Scoter to American Scoter
5.        Schrenck’s Bittern to Von Schrenck’s Bittern
6.        Swinhoe’s Egret to Chinese Egret
7.        Eurasian Black Vulture to Cinereous Vulture
8.        Brown Crake to Brown Bush-hen
9.        Great Thick-knee to Great Stone-curlew
10.        Yellow-legged Gull to Caspian Gull
11.        Greater Crested Tern to Swift Tern
12.        Rock Dove to Common Pigeon
13.        Northern Hawk Cuckoo to Rufous Hawk-Cuckoo
14.        Asian Lesser Cuckoo to Lesser Cuckoo
15.        Pacific Swift to Fork-tailed Swift
16.        Blue Magpie to Red-billed Blue Magpie
17.        Chinese Bulbul to Light-vented Bulbul
18.        Goodson’s Leaf Warbler to Hartert’s Warbler
19.        Bright-capped Cisticola to Golden-headed Cisticola
20.        Purple-backed Starling to Daurian Starling
21.        Red-throated Flycatcher to Taiga Flycatcher
22.        Yellow-billed Grosbeak to Chinese Grosbeak

Of these, I strongly dislike 8, 11, 12, 13, 17 and 21.  I would recommend not adopting these except for 21, as Taiga Flycatcher is becoming very widely used.
I note that three of the changes (5, 19 and 22) are in fact ‘old’ names previously used in HK.
Many of the rest use names which are in widespread use within Asia or are names for recent splits (e.g. 18 - for which either proposed name is equally valid).
So which are the unacceptable names?  Which are incorrect? Which result in a loss of cultural context?

Personally, I don’t think we should be creating new names, nor should be discussing the Chinese list in the context of this discussion as I don’t think it is relevant.

[ Last edited by lpaul at 25/02/2010 13:54 ]

lpaul

My reply here is simply an attempt to highlight how complex this issue is.  Mike considers Rufous-rumped Grassbird a ‘plain bad name’, in part because ‘giving the same name to species from two genera cannot possibly be described as sound taxonomy’.  [I presume here that Mike is referring to the word Grassbird which is also used for Megalurus and Chaetornis species – so would actually be applied to three genera]
The current HK name is Large Grass Warbler which is no longer accurate as recent molecular work has shown it to be a babbler, more specifically placed in a clade referred to as Pellorneinae that includes e.g. Alcippe, Pellorneum, Napothera and Gampsorhynchus.  As such retaining the current common name is taxonomically misleading.
However, using a ‘family’ name across genera is common practice (think of ‘Warbler’ which is used for Locustellas, Acrocephalus, Hippolais, Phylloscopus, Seicercus, Abroscopus etc.).  The point about Graminicola, Megalurus and Chaetornis is that they are closely related and are more closely related than the genera which use ‘babbler’ in their English name.  Hence Streaked Grass Babbler is less taxonomically sound than Rufous-rumped Grassbird.
I don’t suppose Mike would like to see genera specific English names either, imagine the changes that would cause (think of the gulls which have recently been split into four genera).
Graminicola bengalensis (my, I love scientific names!) may well be split in the future, but the proposed split may not become widely accepted.  The paper proposing the split (of which I am an author, which is why I know about this) proposes English names, so suggesting a new name now which pre-empts the publication of the paper may well be premature.
For the other examples Mike lists at the end of the post I would note that both Red-billed Starling and Brownish-flanked Bush Warbler are already the official HK names (which is why I excluded it from the summary of changes in my previous post) and a change to the name Drongo Cuckoo is required due to the species being split into three species.  I accept that Square-tailed Drongo-cuckoo is not a good name, but what are the alternatives?  Is there a better name that EVERYONE will like?

[ Last edited by lpaul at 26/02/2010 10:56 ]

lpaul

Whilst coining new common names is an option, it should be noted that use of scientific names is controlled by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature and under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature new scientific names can only be adopted in fairly exceptional circumstances.

For those interested the code can be found at:
http://www.iczn.org/iczn/index.jsp