Bird species new to science
This is the parent page for a series of pages listing bird species new to science described since 1900. Prior to the twentieth century and indeed into the early decades of the twentieth century, the pace of discovery of new species was fast; during this period, with numerous collecting expeditions into species-rich areas not previously visited by western ornithologists, up to several hundred new species per decade were being described. Since then, the pace has slowed, and new species are generally only being found in remote areas, or among cryptic or secretive groups of species. Nonetheless, several tens of species were described for the first time during the 1990s.
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Publication of new species
Places where accounts are published
Publication of accounts of new species has occurred in only a small number of periodicals.
Elapsed time between discovery & publication
Considerable time can pass between discovery and publication, for a number of reasons.
The Meise and AMNH reviews
During the 20th Century, ornithologists published a number of periodic reviews of newly described species. The purpose of each of these reviews was the collecting together in a single paper, for ease of reference, all new species descriptions published in the period of study, and to present an analysis of these, indicating which represent valid species, and which, for various reasons, do not (see the section below entitled "New species or not a new species?")
The first such review was published in 1934, by the ornithologist Wilhelm Meise, covering the period 1920 to 1934. Meise presented his review to the Eighth International Ornithological Congress (IOC) in Oxford. The review listed 600 new species names described in that period. Meise was of the opinion that between 135 and 200 represented good species. At the ninth IOC in 1938, Meise presented a second paper, listing 23 new species described in the intervening period, plus a further 36 which had been described during 1920-1934 and not covered in the earlier paper. Meise's papers:
- Meise, W. (1934) Fortschritte der ornithologischen Systematik seit 1920 Proc. VIII Cong. Internat. Ornith. pp49-189
- Meise, W. (1938) Exposition de types d'oiseaux nouvellement décrits au Muséum de Paris Proc. IX Cong. Internat. Ornith. pp46-51
After the Second World War, ornithologists based at museums in the American Museum of Natural History produced further reviews; again, each of these listed newly described species and presented an analysis, indicating which were & were not good species. To date six such papers have been compiled; they are, in chronological order:
- Zimmer, J. T. & E. Mayr (1943) New species of birds described from 1938 to 1941 Auk 60(2): 249-262 PDF fulltext
- Mayr, E. (1957) New species of birds described from 1941 to 1955 Journal for Ornithology 98: 22-35
- Mayr, E. (1971) New species of birds described from 1956 to 1965 J. Ornithol. 112: 302-316
- Mayr, E. & F. Vuilleumier (1983) New species of birds described from 1966 to 1975 J. Ornithol. 124: 217-232
- Vuilleumier, F. & E. Mayr (1987) New species of birds described from 1976 to 1980 J. Ornithol. 128: 137-150
- Vuilleumier, François, Mary LeCroy & Ernst Mayr (1992) New species of birds described from 1981 to 1990 Bull. B.O.C. 112A: 267-309.
No further detailed analyses have been published since the 1992 paper, although the British magazine Birding World has published two articles by Oscar van Rootselaar listing newly-described species since 1990:
- van Rootselaar, Oscar (1999) New birds for the World: species discovered during 1980 - 1999 Birding World 12: 286-293
- van Rootselaar, Oscar (2002) New birds for the World: species described during 1999 - 2002 Birding World 15: 428-431
New species or not a new species?
A number of species described during this period have turned out not to be valid species. There are a number of reasons for this. The following is a list of these species:
Geographic distribution of newly described species
The following table gives the total number of new species per decade for each zoogeographic region:
| Decade | Neotropics | Afrotropics & Malagasy region | Oriental region | Australia-Pacific region | Nearctic region | Palearctic region |
| 1950s | ||||||
| 1960s | ||||||
| 1970s | ||||||
| 1980s | ||||||
| 1990s | ||||||
| 2000s |
Individual countries particularly rich in species newly-described during this period are:
Discoverers
A number of individuals have been particularly prolific in describing new species.
Notable among these are:
- Paul Coopmans
- Bret Whitney
Decade by decade
| Decade | Species |
|---|---|
| 1950s | |
| 1960s | 2+ |
| 1970s | |
| 1980s | 20+ |
| 1990s | 8+ |
| 2000s | 36 |
Categories
Incomplete lists | Birds