Animal Diversity Web updates its avian taxonomy

The Animal Diversity Web has been working on innovative new ways to easily fix and update our taxonomic database. We use taxonomic data from multiple taxonomic authorities. Our avian taxonomy has been updated to be consistent with the new Howard and Moore "Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World (3rd edition, 2003). The Howard and Moore list is from the family to the subspecies level so, for higher level avian taxonomy we rely on the recommendations of the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology Bird Division. This new taxonomic arrangement includes mapping all new names to their older synonyms, so no information has been lost in the transition.

Look for new taxonomic updates in the coming months!