Check out the checklist

Just when you thought the show was over…

“Handbook of the Birds of the World” (HBW) is a 17-volume encyclopedia describing all living species of birds. It seems the editors just can't part with this project, since supplemental works are still being published. This is the first volume of “Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World”, covering the non-passerines. A second volume, featuring the passerines, will be published later this year. Despite its name, the “checklist” isn't a traditional, boring, scientists-only textual mass of Latin names. Rather, it's a kind of super-summary of the 17-volume HBW, complete with species presentations (albeit shorter ones than in the original work), range maps and color illustrations. The main reason for rinsing and repeating everything one more time seems to be that it *isn't* a straightforward rehash.

The editors have apparently applied a new method for defining species, associated with Joseph Tobias, to the world's avifauna. Rather than looking at the DNA evidence, the new species concept is based on morphology and bird behavior (including bird song). This has led to substantial changes in the taxonomy. Among non-passerines, there have been 462 splits and only 30 lumps, presumably meaning that 432 new species have been added to the list, all of them described and illustrated in the Checklist. Say hello to the Snow Mountain Tiger Parrot, Butterfly Coquette and Lompobattang Fruit-dove! In an article on the web, the HBW-cum-Checklist editors forthrightly admit that the recognition of many new species has obvious consequences for conservation efforts, including larger amounts of grant money for the scientists involved in the conservation…

Another new feature of the Checklist is that it (finally) describes and illustrates (if at all possible) extinct birds, including the Great Auk and the Dodo. The total number of extant bird species covered in this first volume is 4,372 plus 99 extinct species. It will be interesting to see if Lynx Edicions manages to squeeze all passerines into a second volume as promised, or if yet another jumbo-sized book is waiting in the wings…

I'm not sure who would want to buy “The Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World”, but if you found the 17th (index) volume of the HBW incredibly boring, I suppose this could be just what you were looking for.

Five stars!