Mexican Duck on e-bird

[Brandon]

Did Mexican Duck get split from Mallard??  E-bird seems to think so, so I was wondering, if anyone knows for sure, it is all confusing to me.  If it has, then this will be a new species for Colorado, since there have been more and more Mexican Ducks in the state, in the last several years.

From e-bird's Home Page:    If eBird had a subspecies group such as Mallard (Mexican) that was relevant to the new split, then those entries will be upgraded from a subspecies group to the new species (e.g., Mexican Duck). If you did not specify the subspecies, then we try to assign records based on known range and occurrence patterns.  

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Brandon Percival
Pueblo West, CO

[Mark Miller]

Hi Everyone,

 

The 2018 ebird checklist went live today, as did the Clements checklist. Here is the change comment.

 

The monotypic group Mallard (Mexican) Anas platyrhynchos diazi is elevated to species rank as Mexican Duck Anas diazi. Genetic divergence of Mexican Duck from Mallard is at comparable levels to other taxa that are recognized as species, such as American Black Duck Anas rubripes and Mottled Duck Anas fulvigula (McCracken et al. 2001, Lavretsky et al. 2014a, 2014b, 2015); and hybridization between Mallard and Mexican Duck has not been demonstrated to occur at higher levels than between Mallard and other species in the Mallard complex. Revise the range description for Mexican Duck from "S Texas, New Mexico and Arizona south to central Mexico" to "southeastern Arizona, southern New Mexico, and western Texas (Trans-Pecos region) south to central Mexico".

 

Mark Miller

Longmont, CO

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[Brandon]

The confusing part is, that the AOU checklist committee didn't accept Mexican Duck as a full species (as far as I can tell).  The ABA Checklist committee always follows AOU on split species.  So, I'm thinking that Mexican Duck doesn't count any lists submitted to ABA Listing Central (is that correct)??  So, Mexican Duck can't be added to the Colorado State List, if it isn't a full species, according to AOU. 

Brandon K. Percival

Pueblo West, CO 

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[Mark Miller]

All,

 

See the ABA blog for more on lumps and splits from the American Ornithological Society’s Committee on Classification and Nomenclature of North and Middle American Birds (whew).

 

http://blog.aba.org/2018/06/aos2018.html

 

The NACC accepts all of ABA’s changes, but the AOU goes its own way. I’ve asked Jon Dunn the question of why so many checklists, and he says they have different goals. Maybe that’s a diplomatic way of saying the two groups agree to disagree. If the Colorado Bird Records Committee goes by AOU, then it’s not a new bird. If it goes by NACC, it is. It wouldn’t be the first time.

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[Eric DeFonso]

Hi folks,

The AOS has a committee called the NACC as described by Mark, and that committee makes taxonomic decisions on changes to the official AOS checklist on a regular basis (biannually, I believe). For the purposes of discussion, the AOS and the NACC are functionally the same, as the NACC is a committee of the AOS.

As mentioned by Mark, the NACC *generally* accepts additions to the ABA checklist, but that may not necessarily apply to splits as opposed to extralimital vagrants (where the identification is beyond question). And so, in the case of this Mexican Duck, it becomes a bit perplexing as it comes down to what will end up on which list.

A proposal was submitted to the NACC to give full species status to Mexican Duck, but it was rejected this year by the committee by a 7-3 vote.

The eBird/Clements checklist, which *generally* abides by decisions of the NACC, has decided to go ahead and accept that Mexican Duck is a full separate species and add it to users checklists and to the official Clements global checklist.

So why would eBird/Clements go ahead and accept this proposal while the NACC resoundingly rejected it? Well, the proposal was submitted to the NACC by Tom Schulenberg himself....who also happens to be the co-manager of the eBird/Clements taxonomy! The lesson being, if you manage your own taxonomy, you get to accept your own proposals. :) 

And which authority will CFO abide by in this case? I have no idea.

Eric

p.s. As far as why there are so many checklists, it's true, different authorities or organizations do have different functions and purposes. The ABA list is a birder's checklist. The AOU/AOS list is used by birders but is designed more for Western Hemisphere ornithologists. The eBird/Clements checklist is used by both birders and ornithologists, but needs to be global in scope and so must bear in mind the effect of taxonomic changes where applicable on family/order taxonomies on other continents. This was especially true regarding the recent re-organization of Caprimulgiformes, which has member taxa all around the world but certainly has a strong representation in both North and South America.

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Eric DeFonso
Coal Creek Canyon, Jefferson County, CO (at exactly 8,000' ASL)

[Arthur Bezuidenhout]

It would appear so. I have a check list from the San Pedro river in AZ, it shows Mexican Duck. However, my life list number has not changed ......yet!

Bez

Sent from my iPhone

[Ted Floyd]

On Wednesday, August 15, 2018 at 10:45:57 PM UTC-6, Arthur Bezuidenhout wrote:

It would appear so. I have a check list from the San Pedro river in AZ, it shows Mexican Duck. However, my life list number has not changed ......yet!

Bez

Might want to check again... ;-)

Anyhow, looks like our life list numbers have been updated. Also year lists, county lists, and everything else, e.g.:

I agree with Eric DeFonso that it will be interesting to see which authority CFO follows. S.O.P., it seems to me, would be AOS (American Ornithological Society). At the same time, I recognize that the authority of eBird is gaining ascendancy. To be clear, the American Birding Association (ABA) follows AOS, not eBird, in the very few instances of disagreement. With regard to Mexican Duck, then, we are going to have to live with a bit of ambiguity. But take heart!--There are two kinds of people in this world: those who embrace ambiguity and those whose heads explode. :-)

Ted Floyd

Lafayette, eastern Boulder County