South American Classification Committee: 436 more species on list since 1970

[Fern Davies]

(FROM NEOORN)

 

Meyer de Schauensee (1970) was the foundational classification of South American birds. With the help of Dan Zimberlin, the South American Classification Committee's list, dowloadable as an excel file from http://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.html,
can be compared in part to Meyer de Schauensse's. We have not yet tallied the species that have been "lumped" post-Meyer de Schaunesee, but here are the sources of the increased number of species on the South American list:

-- 108 newly discovered and described species
-- 274 species added by splits from existing species
-- 15 range extensions of breeders and regularly occurring non breeders (not included introduced species)
-- 39 vagrants

… for a grand total of 436 species added to the list

(see rows 3353 on in the spreadsheet)

That represents a substantial increase in species richness (ca. 15% increase) through the hard work by those of you studying birds in South America.

We still have some problems to sort out, and if you see any errors, please let me know. Dan and I will likely write an article on this, so input welcomed.


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Dr. J. V. Remsen
Prof. of Natural Science and Curator of Birds
Museum of Natural Science/Dept. Biological Sciences
LSU, Baton Rouge, LA 70803
najamesLSU.edu