AERC TAC’s TAXONOMIC RECOMMENDATIONS
2012 report

Citation:Crochet P.-A., Barthel P.H., Bauer H.-G., van den Berg A.B., Bezzel E., Collinson J.M., Dietzen
C., Dubois P.J., Fromholtz J., Helbig A.J. †, Jiguet F., Jirle E., Knox A.G., Krüger T., Le Maréchal
P., van Loon A.J., Päckert M., Parkin D.T., Pons J.-M., Raty L., Roselaar C.S., Sangster G.,
Steinheimer F.D., Svensson L., Tyrberg T., Votier S.C., Yésou P. (2012) AERC TAC's taxonomic
recommendations: 2012 report. Available online at http://www.aerc.eu/tac.html.

Introduction
This document constitutes the official 2012 AERC TAC recommendations for species-levelsystematics and nomenclature of Western Palearctic birds. For full information on the TAC and its
history, please refer to the documents on the AERC web page www.aerc.eu, including the minutesof the AERC meetings (http://www.aerc.eu/minutes.html) and the TAC pages(www.aerc.eu/tac.html).
The format of this document follows the previous TAC recommendations (Crochet et al.
2010), which see for details.
The TAC has five members: Taxonomic Sub-committee of the British Ornithologists’ Union
Records Committee (BOURC-TSC, UK), Commission de l’Avifaune Française (CAF, France),
Swedish Taxonomic Committee (STC, Sweden), Commissie Systematiek Nederlandse Avifauna(CSNA, Netherlands) and Kommission Artenliste der Vögel Deutschlands der Deutschen
Ornithologen-Gesellschaft (German TC, Germany). As decided previously, systematic changes arebased on decisions published by, or directly passed to the TAC chairman, by these taxonomic
committees (TCs).
In this document, the support for each case is given as yes / no / not addressed.
Note that several TAC members sent some of their votes directly to the TAC chairman, either
without publishing a decision on the case (when this did not affect their national list) or prior to thepublication of their own decisions in order not to delay the publication of the TAC
recommendations. There might thus be some discrepancy between the support indicated here
and the “relevant taxonomic committee publications” section; this is not necessarily a mistake.
The species sequence (the higher-level systematics i.e. the family and order names and the order ofthe species in the species list) has still largely not been addressed by the AERC TAC. This
document and the corresponding list of birds of the Western Palearctic thus still follow the sequence
in Voous (1973; 1977a; b) except for a few decisions adopted by the AERC here or in the previous
report. This species sequence and the corresponding higher-level systematics are now known togrossly misrepresent avian species relationships in many cases and updating them remains a majortask for the TAC.
Systematics below the species rank is not part of the TAC remit. Subspecies lists that are givenfor some cases
are based on theIOC
worldbirdlistversion
3.0(http://www.worldbirdnames.org/ioc-lists/master-list/) and are purely indicative. They do notnecessarily reflect the views of the TAC members.
Authorship follows the same convention as in Crochet et al. (2010): in addition to the twochairmen of the TAC, members of the national taxonomic committees who were responsible for thedecisions that fed into the report are listed in alphabetic order. This should not be interpreted assuggesting that they support every individual conclusion contained here.
This document is certainly not free from mistakes. One of the advantages of posting it on the web isthat mistakes can easily be corrected, so please send any comments, suggestions or corrections toPierre-André Crochet (pierre-andre.crochet at cefe.cnrs.fr).

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AERC TAC 2012 recommendations
Crested Honey Buzzard Pernis ptilorhynchus
Notice the correct spelling; Voous (1973) used the spelling ptilorhyncus for the specific epithet. As
explained by Dickinson (2012), this name first appeared as ptilorhynchus on the wrappers of theeighth part (“livraison”) of the plates of Temminck and Laugier, which were published in 1821, twoyears before Temminck’s text (1823, see Dickinson 2012 for references of these works) where thespelling ptilorhyncus is used. The original spelling is thus ptilorhynchus, which had been alreadyused on the AERC WP list (Crochet & Joynt 2011) without justification.
Kentish Plover Charadrius alexandrinus (polytypic: alexandrinus and extralimital
dealbatus and seebohmi)
Snowy Plover Charadrius nivosus (extralimital; polytypic: nivosus and occidentalis)
Support: 4/0/1. This treatment is favoured by four TAC members; the CSNA did not address it.
Relevant taxonomic committee publications: Helbig (in Bauer et al. 2005, Germany), Sangster et al.
(2011, on behalf of the BOURC-TSC).
Species sequence of Merops
Based on molecular phylogeny of the genus Merops (Marks et al. 2007), the species of Merops on
the WP list should be listed as follows:
Green Bee-eater Merops orientalis
European Bee-eater Merops apiasterBlue-cheeked Bee-eater Merops persicus
Support: this case has not been addressed by any TC yet but has been discussed within the TAC andthis treatment is accepted by all TC members.
Rüppell's Warbler Sylvia ruppeli (was Sylvia rueppelli)
Notice the correct spelling. Temminck used the spelling ruppeli in the text for the plate 245 andruppelii in the “Tableau méthodique”. As explained by Dickinson (2001), the plate 245 and theaccompanying text were published in 1823 while the “Tableau méthodique” was published after
1836 (in 1838 or 1839 according to Dickinson pers. com.). The original spelling is thus ruppeli. The
specific epithet is sometimes spelt rueppelli because the species is dedicated to the nineteenthcentury German naturalist Eduard Rüppell. However, the spelling Ruppel is used consistently byTemminck throughout the text and for the French name (“Bec-fin Ruppel”), making it clear that thespelling is not an inadvertent error. The conditions of Article 32.5.1 of the International Code ofZoological Nomenclature (ICZN 1999, the Code hereafter) are thus clearly not met. There is no useof the umlaut either anywhere in the text or in any of the spelling of the specific epithet used byTemminck. In conclusion, neither the addition of “e” after “u” nor the addition of a second “l” arejustified by the Code, and these changes are unjustified emendations (see also Peterson 2002).
Eurasian Bullfinch Pyrrhula pyrrhula (polytypic: 8 subspecies in the Western Palearctic
and 3 extralimital subspecies)
Azores Bullfinch Pyrrhula murina (split from P. pyrrhula; monotypic).
Support: 5/0/0. This treatment is favoured by all five TAC members.
Relevant taxonomic committee publications: Helbig and Barthel (in Bauer et al. 2005, Germany),
Sangster et al. (2011, on behalf of the BOURC-TSC).
Blue Grosbeak Passerina caerulea (was Guiraca caerulea)
Should the species be admitted on the WP list, it should be inserted after Passerina cyanea.
Support: 4/0/1. This treatment is favoured by four TAC members, the CSNA did not address it.
Relevant taxonomic committee publications: Sangster et al. (2004, on behalf of the BOURC-TSC),
Anderson et al. (2007, on behalf of the STC).
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Bauer H.G., Bezzel E., Fiedler W. (eds) (2005): Das Kompendium der Vögel Mitteleuropas. Allesüber Biologie, Gefährdung und Schutz. 3 volumes. AULA-Verlag, Wiebelsheim.
Crochet P.-A., Joynt G. (2011). AERC list of Western Palearctic birds. December 2011 version.
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