Why are there so many undescribed species? (1 Viewer)

[Maffong]

Hello dear all,
recently I visited the amazing country of Peru, where almost 1900 species of birds can be found, but during my preparation for the trip I found, that quite many of these are still lacking an official description or elevation to species rank.
Many of these are well known to the birding world, such as 'obscura' Chestnut Antpitta, the 'San Isidro Owl' from Ecuador, that has recently also been found in Peru or many others.
Currently I'm aware of undescribed taxa in Canasteros, Tapaculos, Tanagers, Wrens, Antpittas and Owls, I'm sure I'm missing some right now. And that's just in Peru.
However I'd think that to describe a new species would be something like the Holy Grail for scientists, something everybody wants to achieve. But for only few of the species have I heard that there's actually somebody working on its description. Why is that?

On the other hand I have noticed that many scientists try to withold their knowledge about taxa being described. For example the 'San Pedro Tanager' comes to mind, which is known since 2000 but information about it is almost not existant on the internet (I'm currently working on a blog post and there are only ca. 5, mostly anecdotal reports about it. However I know there have been several successful expeditions to find it and several specimens exist.
What's the reason for all that mystery? And why does it often take so long for a new species to be described (12 years since the first specimen of San Pedro Tanager now)

I'm aware of a recent case where the official description for a colombian Antpitta was 'stolen' by another unethical researcher, but that can't be the reason for all this, can it?

Maffong

 

[Richard Klim]

Daniel Philippe's summary spreadsheet is very useful...
www.birdforum.net/showpost.php?p=3152460&postcount=491.

 

[Myornis]

And why does it often take so long for a new species to be described (12 years since the first specimen of San Pedro Tanager now)

Some reasons for delays are these:

Perfectionism: authors wanting more and more data in the form of molecular analysis, more sound recordings, more specimens, more studies of similar forms, the historic literature, old type specimens, more biometrics etc. Sometimes species have been described which turn out later to be already-described when people do it without being exhaustive in their underlying studies (e.g. Omani Owl). This is not necessarily a question of speed, but to be thorough might take time if people have other things to do in their life and need to study type specimens and other materials scattered in 5 different countries and 10 different museums, for example.

Politics: Who gets to author it? The discoverers? Those who did the vocal or sound analysis or molecular studies? Some people who came along 4-5 years later and made the same "discovery"? Once that is decided, who is prepared to put in the initiative to do the write up? And what about that guy who discovered the bird, whose comments on the MS you have not got 3 years after you sent the MS to them for comments (real situation)?

Peer review and the writing process: often a year or more just with the journal; more than that if you want to take into account private review comments and collaborations among multiple co-authors.

 

[Mysticete]

Yep Thomas Donegan hits all the major points. Descriptions actually are quite a bit of work, and in many cases the authors just can not devote a lot of time to it, especially juggling teaching, grant applications, other research projects, mentoring students, all the various sorts of other forms of bureaucracy that come with being an employed scientist. And even if you can devote a lot of time and make it a priority, that doesn't mean your coauthors can, which often means having papers get held up as you wait for collaborators to finish there sections or analyses.

 

[D Halas]

There's also the fact that species descriptions generally don't get cited very often, and generally don't get published in high impact-factor journals, so a researcher who has yet to get a tenure-track position, or promotion, or tenure, is more likely to devote their limited time to the kinds of studies that will get published in more prominent journals and get more citations.

 

[Melanie]

A big problem ist the risk of extinction before the description, e.g. the Cryptic Treehunter was described in 2014 approximately three years after its possible extinction.

 

[Jim LeNomenclatoriste]

A big problem ist the risk of extinction before the description, e.g. the Cryptic Treehunter was described in 2014 approximately three years after its possible extinction.

How can we know that a species is extinct if it has not yet been discovered ?

 

[awiner]

How can we know that a species is extinct if it has not yet been discovered ?

No one said it was undiscovered. It was undescribed. Those are very different states.

 

[Melanie]

How can we know that a species is extinct if it has not yet been discovered ?

Cichlocolaptes mazarbarnetti was discovered in 1986, last seen in 2011, and scientifically described in 2014

http://www.dantebuzzetti.com.br/Cichlocolaptes mazarbarnetti - Mazar-Barnett & Buzzetti 2014.pdf

 

[Myornis]

Cichlocolaptes mazarbarnetti was discovered in 1986, last seen in 2011, and scientifically described in 2014

I don't know the ins and outs of this case, but this sad situation may illustrate how scientific dithering is sometimes as unjustified as the Omani Owl approach. A greater problem than "birders not being able to tick stuff" is that authorities and NGOs will rarely give funds to protect or research anything except CR, EN or VU species. So if you say "please give me some funds to investigate or protect this thing which I promise exists but which noone recognises" it is a very difficult ask. This in turn behoves scientists to get things out quickly where new species are endangered. That clearly did not happen here.

Paul Salaman's recent description of Basileuterus tristriatus sanlucasensis is a prime example how extraordinarily simple and short (2 pages) a description can be. (It is also an example of data-gap driven and other delays, although the population is still alive and kicking in this case). Describing a species basically just needs to specify a holotype (which can be a photographed bird), a name, some diagnosis (e.g. "it's bigger" than something), a locality and the words "new species". That is pretty simple, and smaller or specialist taxonomic journals will publish that sort of thing, but many scientists want to do an impressive paper in a Tier 1 journal, and that can take forever to prepare and get published.

 

[jurek]

All the discoverers too busy to write, please send me information about your undescribed birds. I will do it for you, in exchange of naming one bird myself.

So, what is the longest-undescribed bird? The record I know is 'Teke' Cisticola undescribed for ca. 20 years. Excuse is that Gabon has only one part-time birder.

 

[l_raty]

So, what is the longest-undescribed bird? The record I know is 'Teke' Cisticola undescribed for ca. 20 years. Excuse is that Gabon has only one part-time birder.

It's not something that I regularly keep a record of, but [this] appeared recently on the present forum.

...Ampay Tapaculo was known to exist 29 years ago -- before Maffong (who started the present thread) was born. And it is still unnamed...

The recent Cotinga paper that described the nest and nestling (without a scientific species name being cited--meaning that, once the taxon will be named, a search on the species name will not retrieve this paper) says: "A description is in preparation": this may (or not) be different from [the situation as it was 14 years ago].

how extraordinarily simple and short (2 pages) a description can be.

I wouldn't be surprised if two pages proved to be more than the average length of new bird descriptions since 1758... Particularly if you include subspecies in the calculations.

Describing a species basically just needs to specify a holotype (which can be a photographed bird), a name, some diagnosis (e.g. "it's bigger" than something), a locality and the words "new species".

The only locality that is really needed is that of the collection where you intend to deposit the holotype -- and this is required only if the holotype is an extant specimen.
In some cases, the diagnosis may be optional too -- if someone else has already published a description, a reference to this is enough.

E.g., should anyone publish this:

Scytalopus ampayensis spec. nov.
Holotype: the nestling pictured on Fig. 3 in Baldwin & Drucker (2016, Cotinga 38:12). The specimen is lost.
Diagnosis of the taxon: see Fjeldså & Krabbe (1990, Birds of the High Andes, Zool.Mus.Univ.Copenhagen/Apollo Books, Dk), under "unnamed ssp", p. 440 and plate XLI 1h.​

...the tapaculo would have a name that, technically, would be Code-compliant. (I'm not sure what the SACC would think about it, though. Neither am I arguing that this should be done, by the way.)

 

[Melanie]

Another fail with undescribed taxa is to create a Nomen nudum. Current example is the Santa Marta Screch Owl, an owl discovered by Niels Krabbe, mentioned as undescribed species in König & Weick (2008) and mentioned as Nomen nudum (Megascops gilesi) in Mikkola, Heimo. 2013. "Owls of the World: A Photographic Guide (Second Edition)". Bloomsbury.

http://www.owlpages.com/owls/species.php?s=975

 

[Melanie]

What is the oldest known undescribed living bird taxon?

 

[pbjosh]

A big problem ist the risk of extinction before the description, e.g. the Cryptic Treehunter was described in 2014 approximately three years after its possible extinction.

Unfortunately Alagoas Foliage-Gleaner went with it and Alagoas Antwren is just about lost. Alagoas Curassow lacks any large enough patch of habitat to reintroduce captive birds to. That area is a tragedy. I do not think that anyone was really "sitting on" the Cryptic Treehunter, and it's not completely understood even yet. It was a very Cryptic species that escaped attention due to physical similarity to one species and vocal similarity to another. More info can be had here, for anyone who had not already seen this:

http://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCprop714.htm

 

[pbjosh]

With regards to the Ampay Tapaculo, Millpo Tapaculo (both long known but not yet described), the new "Apurimac / Ayacucho" Tapaculo (link below), and the "Lambayeque" Tapaculo (about which I know nothing), although some of these forms are long known the whole group of "treeline tapaculos" is really poorly understood. There are enough "obvious" clues to believe that there are certainly separate taxa here (among the first three, Ampay is visually distinct from Millpo or Ayacucho, voice is similar among all three, all ranges are distinct as far as is known), I think detailed analysis including voice, morphology and genetics are warranted before hastily proposing species. There could easily be more of these "treeline" Tapaculos in S Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia in little explored areas.

A link to the paper introducing the new "Ayacucho" Tapaculo from the same area as the Ayacucho Thistletail:

https://www.researchgate.net/profil...plications/links/5693bb7908ae820ff0727c73.pdf

 

[pbjosh]

Thomas, on the subject of Colombian Tapaculos do you know what the "Santander" Tapaculo is? I have a seen a reference or two but never knew - is it a proposed split of Blackish or something else? As well, do you know if anyone is working further into Blackish Tapaculo? Certainly the N Peru form is distinctive, and there is some genuine vocal variation in the range but I've never looked into it much.

Similarly Northern White-crowned as currently classified seems from a layman's perspective to be polytypic. Cordillera Azul birds are vocally quite distinct and who knows how much further that could be carved up - I haven't looked into it too much.

 

[Melanie]

I do not think that anyone was really "sitting on" the Cryptic Treehunter, and it's not completely understood even yet.

http://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCprop714.htm

I think the main problem with the Cryptic Treehunter description was that Juan Mazar Barnett passed away in 2012.

 

[Myornis]

Colombian tapaculos update

Thomas, on the subject of Colombian Tapaculos do you know what the "Santander" Tapaculo is? I have a seen a reference or two but never knew - is it a proposed split of Blackish or something else? As well, do you know if anyone is working further into Blackish Tapaculo? Certainly the N Peru form is distinctive, and there is some genuine vocal variation in the range but I've never looked into it much.

I don't know what the Santander Tapaculo is supposed to be, but Jorge and I have described the following from that department recently:
S. griseicollis gilesi
S. griseicollis morenoi
S. rodriguezi yariguiorum

S. spillmanni includes some undescribed subspecies variation in it, which may ultimately include a new name for the East Andes population. Or may not.

There is certainly undescribed subspecies variation in S. latrans. There are W/E differences in Ecuador which follow into Colombia. And Antioquia birds are quite grey. Myiornis senilis clearly includes undescribed stuff in it too in Colombia.

Perija Tapaculo is now described, so Alto Pisones is the last (known) species-rank one lacking a name now.

Donegan & Avendano 2008 Ornitologia Colombiana sets out all the above.

 

[pbjosh]

Here is a bit more about the Pernambuco situation and the two Furnariids:

https://ornitolab.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/lees2014neotropical-birding.pdf

If it is not considered correct to post this link please let me know.