Dear Friends,

A couple of people have asked me how to find Momotidae. The easiest way is to enter Momitidae in the first Search field, and change the Seach choice to Peters Family List (or any of the Family lists, since they all have Momotidae), and click Search. Alternatively,you can go to Family Lists in the Top Menu Bar. When you move your cursor to Family Lists, select Peters Family List in the pull down menu, and scroll down to select Momotidae. I indicate on this family list which families I have completed.  Do not, however, click on Family Lists, because if you select Peters Family List in the pop-up window that appears, it takes you, incorrectly, to the Sibley-Monroe Family List. This is one of the things I am getting fixed. As I mentioned earlier, these fixes are going to cost me some $2000. Unfortunately, only Theo de Kok has kindly provided some hlep in meeting this cost.

John Penhallurick 

Dear Friends,

I am delighted to say that I have finished the Motmots of the family MOMOTIDAE. I have rejected, I believe with good reason, Peters' unexplained lump in his vol.5 (1948) of what all  ornithologists, including Ridgway,Hellmayr,Cory,von Berlepsch and Chapman, prior to Peters had treated as distinct species into Blue-crowned Motmot Momotus momota.  I have given reasons in each case, with particular reference to features of plumage and voice, which can be found for each species under Citations,Notes and Synonyms.  Previously, Peters' lump of Rufous Motmot Baryphthengus martii with Rufous-capped Motmot B. ruficapillus, as well as his lump of Highland Motmot Momotus aequatorialis with Blue-crowned Motmot Momotus momota had already been rejected. The grounds are equally solid to undo his casual lumping of separate species in Momotus momota.

I welcome, as usual, comments and criticism.

John Penhallurick

Dear Friends,

Although you cannot always see it obviously, I am always working at something on my website.  I discovered that there were two separate publications involved in Agassiz's Nomenclator.  So I had to go laboriously though all the entries for Agassiz making sure that I had the right publication. If you would like to see the results of this, got to Birds Search, and in Generic/Subgeneric Synonym, do one search using Nomenclator zoologicus as the search term.  Then do  another search on Nomenclatoris zoologici index universalis. 

Secondly, I have restarted work to complete the synonymy for the Anatidae.  I had left this hoping I could get access to the notes on the Anatidae by Freidmann in the Smithsonian, but I've now decided to finish it off.

I am also making some improvements to the website: fixing things that don't work eg registering, and doing some things that will speed up my data entires, and my ability to correct errors. This is going to cost me about $2000.  If anyone would like to help with these costs, please let me know at  my email address:jpenhall@bigpond.net.au

Thanks and enjoy, it's free.

John Penhallurick

Many thanks to Gary Stiles for directing me to his comments in the articles by Stiles,Roselli and Bohóhorquez,1999,Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club,119,no.2,on pp.120-21 for very valuable discussion of the place of race abbreviatus.  To see the results go to Ramphastos swainsonii and remember to click on Citations,Notes and Synonyms to look at the reasons.

Enjoy,

John Penhallurick