Taxonomy

Buff-breasted Sandpiper ML265634921
BOW Team January 9, 2024
As Birds of the World inches towards the close of our fourth year (!), we have much good news to report about how the project has developed, expanded, and adapted to new opportunities. Please read on for details!  
Wangi-Wangi White-eye ML202322911
BOW Team November 1, 2023
Three avian taxonomy experts from eBird and Birds of the World convened for a discussion of the recent updates to the eBird/Clements checklist. The team provided an in-depth overview of the 2023 taxonomy updates and recent efforts to standardize bird taxonomy across all major global checklists.
Inti Tanager ML399208031
BOW Team October 25, 2022
Once per year, eBird updates all bird records in the database to reflect the latest ‘splits’, ‘lumps’, additions of new species, changes to scientific names, taxonomic sequence, and more. As well, our Birds of the World editorial team furiously produces, splits, and lumps species accounts to reflect the latest nomenclature.
Desert Owl (Strix hadorami) by Jens Eriksen (ML63556211)
BOW Team August 19, 2021
Why is each species named what it is? And what do these names reveal about the birds themselves?
Festive Coquette ML256101871
BOW Team August 16, 2021
Over the next few weeks, the 2021 eBird Clements taxonomic update will progress.  This update, our first since the launch of the Birds of the World website, takes into account recent taxonomic knowledge on splits, lumps, name changes, and changes in the sequence of the species lists.
José Luis Copete July 29, 2021
A new species of Melanocharis berrypecker (Melanocharitidae) was discovered during a recent ornithological expedition to the Kumawa Mountains in West Papua, in the cloud forest at an elevation of 1200 m. It has been named Satin Berrypecker (Melanocharis citreola)
Secretarybird ML204584121
BOW Team December 21, 2020
Birds of the World just released the new Taxonomy Explorer, a feature that checks two big items off our collective wish list: regional filters and visual family index. The tool provides limitless exploration of Birds of the World and will be extremely helpful for research, birding, and teaching about birds.
Tundra Bean-Goose ML50202101
Shawn Billerman August 10, 2020
Waterfowl taxonomy is notoriously challenging, in part owing to morphological similarities between and within groups that can obscure patterns of divergence (Mowbray et al. 2020).
Jalca Tapaculo ML137796351
Tom Schulenberg May 4, 2020
Neotropical ornithologist Tom Schulenberg recounts his first sighting of a Scytalopus tapaculo in southern Peru and discusses a long-term, collaborative project to resolve the phylogeny of the tapaculos: that is, to determine how the ever-expanding roster of tapaculos are related to each other
Paridae Family
Shawn Billerman January 20, 2020
One of the most exciting features in Birds of the World is the new Bird Families of the World Explorer, which provides visual and interactive overviews of all 249 bird families along with in-depth summaries of recent scientific literature of the relationships of each family.