Dear Friends,

I am delighted to say that I have finished the Ramphastidae, Toucans.  You will see that in a number of respects I differ from the account by Short & Horne in HBW 7.  Robin Restall and I are preparing a detailed paper on thse matters, but I have indicated briefly in notes where we disagree with Short and Horne and why.

Short & Horne (2001 and 2002), followed Haffer (1974), in merging Chestnut-mandibled Toucan Ramphastos swainsonii Gould 1833 with Black-mandibled Toucan Ramphastos ambiguus Swainson, 1823.  Haffer (1974) lumped these, citing specimens from the lower Cauca Valley (Colombia) as evidence that the taxa interbred (at least formerly) in this location. The statement by Short & Horne (2002: 271) is somewhat vaguer:” Race swainsonii often treated as a distinct species, but resembles nominate in behaviour, voice & morphology, and they apparently [Emphasis added] interbred in former contact zone in Colombia(lower Cauca Valley).". We also note that Short and Horne (2001) did not include any illustrations of supposed R. swainsonii x R. ambiguus hybrids in plate 34, which depicted (inter alia) “Various toucan intergrades and hybrids…”.We have evidence that Haffer’s diagnosis of hybrids is unreliable.  Furthermore, even if we accept that hybrids occurred in the lower Cauca Valley, we have no information on whether phenotypically pure specimens occurred in the same area, or whether, as in northern Ecuador, such birds greatly outnumbered the hybrids.  Hilty and Brown (1986), Stiles and Skutch (1989), Sibley and Monroe (1990),and Ridgely and Greenfield (2001) have not followed Haffer, and have treated swainsonii as a distinct species.  Ridgely and Greenfield (2001: 421) stated that the two are indubitably closely related, with similar, if not identical voices; and considered them to be allospecies.   Hilty & Brown (1986:330) stated that zone of integration between R. swainsonii and R. ambiguus, if any, was unknown.  In the face of this evidence, we prefer to retain Chestnut-mandibled Toucan R. swainsonii and Black-mandibled Toucan R. ambiguus as specifically distinct.

Enjoy, and as always comments are very welcome.

John Penhallurick

Dear Friends,

I have now completed, and updated on the website, The accounts of the species in Ornithion and Phaeomyias. For an extended discussion of why Phaeomyias tumbezana should be recognized as distinct from Phaeomyias murina, go to P.tumbezana and click on Citations, Notes and Synonyms.

I also forgot to mention that I have completed all the Puffbirds, Bucconidae.

Enjoy

John Penhallurick

Hi all,

I began entering data for the Tyrannidae while spending some time at our coast house.  I'm entering this data at present. Enjoy

John Penhallurick

Dear Friends,

I have temporarily ceased entering my data on the Galbulidae to deal with several other matters. My friend,Marek Kuziemko, of Poland, pointed out to me that I had missed entering the citations and synonyms for Glaucidium brodiei and Bubo virginianus. I've fixed both; and fixing the Great Horned Owl entry turned out to be a great adventure. If you want to see the comprehensive results, put Bubo virginianus in the search term and be sure to hit the Citations, Synonyms etc line. There is a massive wealth of data and explanation there. I had begun a revision of the Certhia species. I'll return to these.  I have also been working on a paper that will show that the account by Short and Horne in HBW,vol.7 in relation to Pteroglossus torquatus,Pteroglossus sanguineus and Pteroglossus erythropygius is unmitigated bullshit.

Enjoy! and tell your friends.

John Penhallurick