Taxonomy

Authorities
The taxonomy of Avionary (order, family, genus and species status and names) follows the IOC World Bird List (International Ornithological Congress) version 14.2 of August 2024 by Gill, Rasmussen and Donsker (www.worldbirdnames.org). Where different, the taxonomy according the the Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (HBW), now part of Birds of the World by Cornell Lab of Ornithology, is also accounted for. Scientific names and English names used by other authorities, including eBird/Clements (2024), Howard and Moore (2018), British Birds (2024), and AOU (2024), are also mentioned, under “Synonym Latin“ and “English Synonym”, respectively.

Species vs. subspecies
Bird names are species names in principle. Subspecies considered as full species by some authorities or authors but as subspecies by IOC are also included as if they were species, for example Hydrobates melitensis. The variable status of such taxa is presented in the ‘Taxo’ line, where it is mentioned for example as ‘IOC: subspecies of H. pelagicus’. The number of subspecies (following IOC and HBW) is presented as well; if there are no separate subspecies, the species is indicated as Monotypic.

Genus
The scientific genus name used as an entry is the one used in IOC World Bird List 14.2. Where an alternative name is sometimes used, for example in HBW, eBird/Clements Checklist, Howard and Moore, or was used in the past, this alternative is given below the preferred scientific (Latin) name. As an example, for Thalassarche cauta, the ‘Synonym Latin’ line gives ‘Diomedea cauta’. In special cases, two, three, or even four alternative genus names are presented. All such more or less well-known, including recent, alternative genus names can also be searched for. A special Holarctic species list S mentions most or all of the scientific synonyms, as well as a number of English synonyms.

Family
The family name is given as the scientific (Latin) name (ending in –idae). The family distribution of the IOC World Bird List 14.2 is followed. Alternative (previous) family names are given where appropriate. The multilingual Species Lists present the families according to IOC.

Order
The higher taxonomic level: Order (ending in -iformes) is not mentioned in the search results for species. It is mentioned, however, in the search results for families (after “Taxo”).