Talk:List of birds of Australia

Update required?

Any objections to updating this per Systematics and Taxonomy of Australian Birds, Christidis & Boles 2008? Frickeg (talk) 04:40, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

No particular objections; it is currently the most authoritative list. Maias (talk) 23:40, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Nor here, though C&B2008 does seem to have generated a bit of controversy, unlike 1994. Any taxo-police around might like to notice that this is just a general country list, not some grand taxonomic discourse... --Gergyl (talk) 05:38, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Changes now implemented. In general where scientific names have changed I have simply redirected to the current article rather than implementing possibly controversial changes. Frickeg (talk) 05:15, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, major objections. Changes in taxonomy should be limited to what is generally accepted by the scientific community. If those changes are rejected, they should not find their way into an encyclopaedia. The argument to revert me over a single species because we should use all or nothing from a book is about the worst what you can do, because you never ever can just do a blanket acceptance of a book because you like it. Each change has to be judged on its own merits before implemented. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 01:50, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

OK. Firstly I waited a good while before actually doing anything here to give people a chance to comment, and as I received only positive comments I went ahead and did it. It states at the top of the page that it is based on Christidis & Boles 2008, and so we should do that unless there are clear objections. What exactly are your objections to the "Lophochroa" change? As C&B are considered the most authoritative list, what sources do you have that suggest dissatisfaction with their decision? Frickeg (talk) 05:19, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Taxonomy works by one person or group of people making a proposal for a taxonomic change, which then is either followed by others or rejected by others. The PROPOSAL of them to place a species in its own genus is now made, and I have not yet seen any scientific article following that proposal. As such, it is still just a proposal, and nothing more. If for example the changes would be adopted by the IOC and added to their checklist, it would amount to a rather broad acceptance by the ornithological community because of the cooperative aspect of that list. Moreover, several proposed changes by Christidis & Boles have been adopted by the IOC, "Lophochroa" is NOT among those.

Having said that, now that it is explcite that this list is based on a single work, and does not follow the naming of the IOC, I can live with it. Maybe we should also make a list based on offical IOC names, or at least indicate that in the list whereever a new proposed name is used, for people who use the generally used scientific names? -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 08:30, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps we could use footnotes where changes are not universally accepted? Just to clarify - Christidis and Boles are not making the proposal, they are following proposals by Homberger (2003) in Vertebrate Biomechanics and Evolution (BIOS Scientific Publishers), who in turn was adopting the findings made by Brown and Toft (1999) that if the Galah was placed in the genus Eolophus (something observed by the Wikipedia article), then the Major Mitchell's Cockatoo must also be placed in its own genus as DNA evidence showed that it was more divergent from Cacatua than the Galah. Having said that, footnotes noting recent and/or controversial changes are probably not a bad thing. Frickeg (talk) 23:17, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Footnotes is the way to go. The Galah is already for a long time placed in its own genus, but the Major Mitchell's Cockatoo has not been. Homberger (2003) does not provide any arguments for the elevation of the sub genus Lophochroa to genus, he just deposits his classification there. Christidis & Boles 2008 follow his classification, but provide independent arguments for it to do so (DNA: Brown and Toft 1999; food begging display: Courtney 1996). Hombergers 2003 classification (it is not really a proposal) has hardly been followed by taxonomists (see tolweb, ITIS, IOC, etc), and only now that Christidis & Boles 2008 have made an argument, it is followed more. Curiously, Brown and toft suggested in the same vein to split Cacatua and Licmetis as well, but that is not followed by Christidis & Boles 2008 despite that it had roughly equal support. More curious, the bootstrap analysis lumps the Galah and Major Mitchell's Cockatoo together with a few other species, so the argument could be made that the Galah and Major Mitchell's Cockatoo should be lumped into a single genus. Anyway, there is a ton of arguments why the Christidis & Boles 2008 is not yet followed by many outside Australia. And that brings me back to the encyclopedia that we try to write. Acceptance of a proposal that is pretty much not yet followd by many is not in the best interest of an encyclopedia, worse, what happens here is promotion of a minority view at the cost of the overwhelming followed classification. If this classification is robust, it will be followed soon enough by the OIC (who have already folowed Christidis & Boles 2008 for many other changes; I have send them an e-mail asking clarification). Anyway, taxonomy is slow, and encyclopedias should follows what the field says, and at the moment, this is not yet mainstream accapted. And o, do you have Brown and Toft? if so, you would know that the Major Mitchell's Cockatoo is closer to Cacatua, not the Galah. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 04:13, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Righto. No, I don't have Brown and Toft - I was going from what they said in Christidis & Boles, which I see I may have misinterpreted slightly. Frickeg (talk) 05:12, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Map

With the default picture setting at 300px (in my preferences), the map at the top of this list overwrites the TOC, making both very hard to read! MeegsC | Talk 20:06, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

It's set to 300px in the article too, but renders fine here (1280x1024 screen). What screen resolution do you have?--Gergyl (talk) 07:07, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

1280 x 800, which is the top setting on my Macbook. MeegsC | Talk 17:49, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Snowman's Tables

Not meaning to be rude, but what benefit do these ugly things bring? And the endless repetition of this entirely redundant line:

Common name	Binomial	Status

Perhaps if sort were enabled that could help a little with navigating some of the longer families; is that your plan? Are there other bird lists you can point us to which are formatted this way, and are well-regarded?--Gergyl (talk) 23:20, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

• Just a comment; status usually refers to conservation. Perhaps better re-named notes. No particular objections to using the table format, except perhaps at present its strength, being able to include lots of information cleanly while being easy to read, isn't being used. It would be certainly a useful addition to indicate which species are endemic. Additionally it could be useful to list all the states a bird is found in, either in abbreviated form in this column, (Vic, NSW, WA etc) or formatted like I have in List of birds of Fiji. Sabine's Sunbird talk 14:32, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

• There is also a discussion on this topic at: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Birds#Table_formating_at_List_of_birds_of_Australia_(copied_from_my_talk_page). Snowman (talk) 21:01, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
• List of birds of Leicestershire and Rutland and List of birds of Thailand are both FLs with tables. Snowman (talk) 21:01, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
• The "Status" headings are now changed to "Notes". Snowman (talk) 21:09, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
• I am not planning to add the sort feature to the tables. However, other editors may wish to experiment with this to test the functionality. Snowman (talk) 21:10, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
• The tables provide a framework for extra information to be added. Snowman (talk) 21:17, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Edit explained

I reverted all of the changes made by Fabricio cabrera, but accidentally published changes without any summary. Australian magpie has already its own section in Artamidae, thus no need to include it in Corvidae, and Eurasian magpie was indeed seen several times in Australia as vagrant according to BARC

References

DroneXenomorph (talk) 04:17, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

An annotated checklist of the fossil birds of Australia

I came across this new article, An annotated checklist of the fossil birds of Australia, and thought it might be of interest for those editing this page. —  Jts1882 | talk  15:49, 14 June 2020 (UTC)