Flag for Taxon: Fork-tailed Drongo-Cuckoo (Surniculus dicruroides)
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| redpandacat | Fork-tailed Drongo-Cuckoo (Surniculus dicruroides) |
the range map seems to be confused with Surniculus lugubris (I think!). The systematics of these two species is confusing. |
Aug. 25, 2021 06:12:55 +0000 | lwnrngr |
Ranges updated |
Comments
Thanks for the quick reply. Same for me, cannot see the IUCN ranges. I wonder whether range maps on iNat may have been based on Birdlife if IUCN permanently missing or not loading.
In 2017 Clements split S. lugubris barussarum from S. dicruroides: Avibase I think the range map for S. dicruroides may include S. lugubris barussarum.
As iNat follows Clements 2019 we can look at the range descriptions in the spreadsheet. S. dicruroides has two subspecie. with distributions: 1. Himalayas and the Indian subcontinent; 2. Sri Lanka. S. lugubris has three subspecies with distributions: 1. breeds northeastern India, northern Myanmar, northern Thailand, northern Indochina, and southeastern China, including Hainan; winters south to Sumatra; 2. Himalayas from Kashmir east to northeastern India and Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand south through the Malay Peninsula to Sumatra, Borneo, and Palawan; 3. Java and Bali.
Birds of the World has ranges but is subscription based. That said, the same maps are used in the Merlin bird ID app. eBird range maps also give an indication S. dicruroides: S. lugubris:
Looking at the iNat references for the ranges, it appears both were added from the RedList by the automatic importer.
Re. lugubris split from dicruroides, I was wrong above, apologies. I'd misread an iNat taxon change referenced to Clements 2019.
The Clements v2021 spreadsheet ranges (released yesterday) are unchanged from v2019. Any range updates made now shouldn't need to be changed again anytime soon.
The ranges definitely need some improvement to agree with Clements, I'll have another look tomorrow and get started on redoing the range files
Oh, interesting, so maybe the IUCN were out of date. That's good re Clements 2021, certainly wouldn't want you or another curator to have to redo them next month or whenever. Thanks againfor looking into this.
I don't seem to be able to embed the map in a flag comment so I've put the draft ranges in a iNat journal post here: Updated ranges for Surniculus dicruroides and S. lugubris
Nice one. The combined range seems right from a glance. On my phone currently, will have a closer look later.
The range maps (pink blobs) usually come from the IUCN Redlist, which gets them from Birdlife. For some reason the IUCN ranges aren't loading for me right now, the ones on Birdlife look pretty close to what's on iNat at the moment. The sightings maps on eBird don't agree as much.
Surniculus dicruroides was elevated from Surniculus lugubris dicruroides in Clements v2019. I have noticed in some other splits (African red-billed hornbills) eBird lags/doesn't/can't transfer sightings to the new species. iNat Bird curators would also have had to split the observations where possible. Do you have another source?Links for quick reference:
S. dicruroides - IUCN - BirdLife - eBird
S. lugubris - IUCN - BirdLife - eBird