Hi Neil and all,
As promised I have attached the description (passed to me by Nigel
Hunter yesterday), of the Grey-headed Barbet Gymnobucco cinereiceps,
presented as a distinct species by BirdLife as opposed to
Grey-throated Barbet G. bonapartei.

I support the Tobias principal that a bird that is morphologically
different should get recognition, and receive appropriate protection
for the form. I also think that BirdLife are doing a sterling job at
highlighting little recognised forms that deserve our attention.

Lynx Publications are a private commercial publishing company with
their offices in Spain. They merely act as Editors/Publishers for
BirdLife, and of course as such have no rights to launch new species
onto the planet, and are just printing what they are told to.

If we now look at this revolutionary new Barbet, that occurs in East
Africa, we must look at the parameters that have been set that lead to
the acceptance by both scientific and interested communities of a
formally described new species. Is there any scientific-backed
evidence, and structural evidence, comparison of bill structure and
size, tarsal length, wing and tail lengths, egg, immature plumages and
moult, vocalisations, nesting habits, and on and on…..    Is there a
formal write up of the species which we can refer to in the reference
to see in detail what the proposition for regarding this as a new
species is, is there an author credited as to the research on the
study…. Was there a study?

All of these relate to supportive evidence, most of these are
mandatory when writing up a new species to science, and to all of
these the answer is negative, there is no paper, no study, no author,
no genetic evidence etc. No-one in the past hundred years has ever had
a species accepted as novel merely based on a few feather details, and
minor size variation.

Looking further into the paragraph, items such as different lengths of
nasal tufts, have not even been compared and measured, there is a
broad zone over overlap which is brushed aside, all this is a farce
and makes mockery of the set of procedures that are in place to
prevent cavalier presentation of new species, it could be just as
easily you or I or anyone for that matter following this same route.
No new species should ever be admitted without peer reviewage prior to
formal publication.

We are very close to publishing the new Kenya Checklist, is anything
going to change for Grey-throated Barbet…. I think not. Are any of the
world checklist authorities going to accept this on the evidence
provided, I hope not.

There are very many other new species that they have also “launched”
that are in all likelihood forms deserving specific identity and
hopefully all will be followed up with convincing material, but for
this Barbet alone it is all too wishy-washy and unconvincing and there
lies the problem.

All this may seem harsh, and as I say BirdLife have my support, but
with this they are transgressing the ethical boundaries of species
representation, great for the world listers but is it the road to
complete chaos? With all the necessary evidence for this form provided
and following the correct guidelines, it may well be that they are
right after all, but at present they are not.

Feel free to comment and give your opinions,

Best to All
Brian


On 1/3/19, Brian Finch <birdfinch@gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't know as it is the first I heard if it. In theory there should
> be a cited reference with details of the paper, I will see and let you
> know but do not have HBW Alive I will ask Nigel when I see him
> tomorrow,
> Happy New Year
> Brian
>
> On 1/3/19, Neil and Liz Baker <tzbirdatlas@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>> Brian
>> Is there a peer-reviewed paper for this barbet split?
>> thanks
>> Neil
>> Neil BakerTanzania Bird AtlasP.O. Box 396, Iringa, Tanzania Mobile: +255
>> 753-513603 http://tanzaniabirdatlas.netSubscribe to:
>> tanzaniabirds-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
>>