• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
Where premium quality meets exceptional value. ZEISS Conquest HDX.

Longest Bird Names (2 Viewers)

teamsaint

Well-known member
Was looking at a thread about the 5000th bird being put in the database and it was called the Tawny-crowned Pygmy Tyrant. Now that's a long name, can anyone beat it.
 
teamsaint said:
Was looking at a thread about the 5000th bird being put in the database and it was called the Tawny-crowned Pygmy Tyrant. Now that's a long name, can anyone beat it.


What about Middendorff's Grasshopper-Warbler?
Tawny-crowned Pygmy Tyrant = 23 letters
Middendorff's Grasshopper-Warbler = 29 letters
 
In absolute there are longer, but don't know if in the DB or not, e.g. Chestnut-necklaced Hill Partridge. The longest scientific binomen is I believe Griseotyrannus aurantioatrocristatus. The longest scientific trinomen, no surprise here, Griseotyrannus aurantioatrocristatus aurantioatrocristatus.
 
Southern Blue-eared Glossy-Starling (count them!) must be the longest official name (for a species).
In the first Sibley & Monroe list I ever found online the slot for the English names was measured by this one.
 
Although antiquated (and I'm beyond checking up what it is called these days)

how about
Lesser White-tailed Leaf Warbler

28
 
I remember some of the names in Peter Scott's 'A coloured key to the wildfowl of the world' were rather lengthy, although I think most were subspecies. East Indian Wandering Whistling Duck always used to amuse me:32 letters!
 
Northern Tawny-bellied Screech Owl has 30 letters.

Southern Blue-eared Glossy-Starling = 31 - Xeno
Stuhlmann’s Double-collared Sunbird = 31 - Xeno
Chestnut-necklaced Hill Partridge = 30 - Cuckoo

East Indian Wandering Whistling Duck is indeed a subspecies (Dendrocygna arcuata arcuata), from the Wandering Whistling Duck (Dendrocygna arcuata).

Nice thread!
 
Southern Tawny-bellied Screech Owl has the same number of letters (naturally), but that's not important. Just posted this to say that there are two links to this bird in the Database :t:.

Northern Chestnut-tailed Antbird = 30
Southern Yellow-rumped Seedeater = 30
 
I think you might have to go as far back as Peters for these :

Greater scaly-breasted Wren-Babbler (31) and my favourite of all time , Chinese Rusty-cheeked Scimitar-Babbler (34). Tragic losses to the birding world those two names !

Also has anyone noticed that Cretzschmar's Bunting sports 6 consecutive consonants ?
 
I believe one of the longest in the US is the Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow, which only has twenty seven letters.
 
How about the shortest bird name, I think it would be hard even to tie our Hawaiian name for the Brown, Red-footed and Masked boobies -- in Hawaiian they are: 'A
beat that!
 
Akekeke said:
How about the shortest bird name, I think it would be hard even to tie our Hawaiian name for the Brown, Red-footed and Masked boobies -- in Hawaiian they are: 'A
beat that!

Can't beat it , but Peter's World Bird checklist includes Ou (from Hawaii)
 
I don't know if we can use old names or not but the three-toed woodpeckers could rank in there. Northern Three-toed Woodpecker 27 and Black-backed Three-toed Woodpecker 30. This could be why the AOU changed them
 
Gentoo said:
I don't know if we can use old names or not but the three-toed woodpeckers could rank in there. Northern Three-toed Woodpecker 27 and Black-backed Three-toed Woodpecker 30. This could be why the AOU changed them
How about semi-palmated white crowned waffling Finch! ;)
 
Warning! This thread is more than 18 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top