Roughly 10 percent of the world’s birds — about a thousand species — are songbirds belong to a group...

A recent proposal (555) to the AOU’s South American Classification Committee deals with newly published information about relationships within...

The oldest division in the great avian tree lies between the ratites and tinamous (the paleognaths) and all other...

Many of us in North America are facing the imminent departure of “our” hummingbirds for the next few months,...

We humans often understand things by exploring their relationships. Ourselves, for instance; just consider how many sweet or gritty...

The American Ornithologists’ Union published the 53rd supplement (PDF) to its North American list last week, making official many...

Emotion. Drama. Intrigue. Philosophy. Yes, I’m talking about scientific proposals to ornithological taxonomic authorities. Take, for example, the gem...

    At the onset of this post, let me firmly state that I love taxonomy. I even attended...