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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Taxonomic pitfalls in tits - comments on the Paridae chapter of the Handbook of the Birds of the World

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In the last two decades, parid systematics and taxonomy have greatly benefited from the consistent application of detailed morphological, bioacoustic and molecular genetic methods. Continuously enlarged character sets, particularly in the latter field, helped to resolve a considerable number of taxonomic controversies, and in some cases a clear grouping of molecular markers (mitochondrial DNA) and vocalizations has enabled unambiguous assignment to taxonomic category. However, in our opinion some of these assignments were inadequately reflected in the species accounts of Handbook of the Birds of the World , vol. 12 (Gosler & Clement 2007). Here we point out what we consider to be major flaws in order to prevent further misunderstandings. Most taxonomic pitfalls addressed here refer to those examples where a polytypic species in former treatment was split into one species A and a second paraphyletic species B which includes the sister taxon to species A as a subspecies (or subspecies group). The authors were aware of the current state of the taxonomic debate in all the cases addressed below. They briefly discussed most arguments for an alternative taxonomy but finally rejected the new findings and risked perpetuating an ‘old’ and increasingly obsolete taxonomy. However, we accept that some of the work we cite below was unavailable to the authors.