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Black-bellied (Korhaan) Bustard

And why change its name?! Seems to have a lot more in common with the redcrested than the bustards.

Richard

:lol: I can asure you that all name changes was not done by an individual but by a panel of birding and taxonomy experts. Many of the SA name changes was due to the fact that the birds are know by different names in areas outside SA.

I do however notice that the Black-bellied Korhaan is the only Korhaan in SASOL 3 to be renamed a Bustard although Roberts VII also list the White-bellied Korhaan as a Bustard. While SASOL 3 has also renamed the White-bellied Korhaan to Barrow’s Korhaan with the scientific name Eupodotis barrowii while the Roberts VII list that I have names this as Eupodotis senegalensis . All VERY confussing I agree.

I will try and see if there is anyone out there that can help to explain to us the reasoning behind changing Black-bellied Korhaan to Bustard.

I really hope that someone will be able to answer this question.

All the recent name changes seems to confuse many people. For this reason the moderators on the SANParks forum decided to list both the old and new name, where a change took place.

Someone queried the change of Black-bellied Korhaan to Black-bellied Bustard as to them this bird more resembles other Korhaans than it does Bustards.

When I had a look at a Roberts VII list I noticed that it seems as if White-bellied Korhaan was also rename White-bellied Bustard although my SASOL 3 indicates that White-bellied Korhaan is now known as Barrow’s Korhaan [Barrow’s (Southern Whitebellied) Korhaan] for which SASOL 3 gives Eupodotis barrowii as scientific species name while the Roberts VII list gives the scientific name for White-bellied Korhaan as Eupodotis senegalensis

I wonder if anyone possibly know:
1.The reasoning behind the name change of Black-bellied Korhaan to a Bustard. Was it based on taxonomy etc.
2. Why the difference in the scientific names for "White-bellied Korhaan" in SASOL 3 and the Roberts VII list I have.
3. What is the correct "common name" White-bellied Bustard, White-bellied Korhaan or Barrow's Korhaan?

Your help in clearing up the confusion is much appreciated

My understanding of the bustard names is this:

Black-bellied Bustard vs Black-bellied Korhaan
All "korhaans" are known as bustards in other parts of Africa regardless of their size. Because the bulk of the Black-bellied Bustard's distribution falls OUTSIDE of our region they have deferred to the name "bustard" instead of "korhaan". Bustards that occur only in our region are called "korhaans" in order to use the locally preferred name.

White-bellied Bustard
Initially this bird was split by the Roberts 7 authors and the local race was called Barrow's Korhaan with the northern race which is confined mainly to west, central and east Africa called White-bellied Bustard. Then the split was retracted and the birds were lumped together again and called the White-bellied Korhaan. However, the Sasol fieldguide has resurrected the Barrow's Korhaan race as a distinct species. I personally have a problem with this because if every book author lumps and splits species arbitrarily there will be complete confusion.

As to why they have called the species White-bellied KORHAAN and not a BUSTARD (if you look at the rule I have referred to above) I don't know. I wrote to the Roberts 7 authors querying this some time ago but I never received a reply.

From what I know the word Korhaan is only used in Southern African whilst Bustard is used elsewhere in the world. Those birds endemic to Southern Africa have retained the name Korhaan whilst those occurring outside of the region have changed to Bustard.

E. senegalensis/barrowi. It has been accepted for many years that the Nth and Sth populations of these bustards/korhaans are separate spp and have been treated so by various authors including myself. Those that know them well in the field have never considered them to be the same species because of their very obvious differences.

E. senegalensis known as White-bellied Bustard (throughout its range in Africa) and E. barrowi as Barrow's Korhaan, an endemic to South Africa.

Callan Cohen, who is presently doing a Phd on African bustards will hopefully present molecular evidence to show them to be different spp. He is also of the opinion that they are different spp.

I'm not too sure about the name changes from Korhaan to bustard and I suggest you address this query to Peter Ryan. I suspect those small bustards that are endemic to sth. Africa retain their endemic Afrikaans names because of their endemism and those with more widespread distribution in Africa are called bustard.

Name Changes. I strongly urge you to use both old and new names. I will do this in all my field guides for sth Africa and Africa. I was very reluctant to adopt the new names but did so for the sake of conformity although I'm not too sure the new names will stand the test of time.

There is a names committee for Africa and that's how the "new" names came about. The committee consists of representatives from different parts of Africa as well, not just one region. It makes sense to have a standardised list of names for Africa and that's what the names committee came up with. The problem is that this is such an emotive issue that people will never be satisfied. There will always of course be a situation as well where individual book authors choose to include or omit species according to their whim and don't support new or alternative names, as evidenced by Ian Sinclair's message. So whose advice do you follow and which list do you use? In my opinion we should use the Roberts 7 names and if in time a new paper shows that the White-bellied/ Barrow's Korhaan split is valid then that will probably be adopted in the same way that the Long-tailed and Kimberley Pipits came into being.

André Marx

Hi Francois (and birdnetters) - Perhaps as author of the bustard/korhaan accounts in Roberts VII I can shed some light on the issue. Concerning Black-bellied Bustard, there is recent molecular evidence that the genus Lissotis clusters with the larger bustard species, rather than the smaller ones (despite its appearance). Roberts VII did not split up the various subspecies of White-bellied Korhaan at my insistence - I simply felt that there was no new information on the birds to justify changing the established position (unlike the situation with the Red-crested forms, where published studies prompted subsequent splits across the wide African range of this taxon). So, considering the common and scientific names, you'd call it Barrow's/barrowii if you believed the South African subspecies to be a good species (as in SASOL3) in its own right and White-bellied/senegalensis if you don't (as in Roberts VII). It get's worse, if you look at earlier editions of fieldguides, you'll find the scientific name cafra used, e.g. as in my 7th edition of Newman's. South Africa was unique in the world for blatantly and wrongly continuing to use cafra decades after it was formally 'supressed' by the globally taxonomic authority (due to an early confuson related to a type specimen initially thought to be Denham's Bustard but later recognised as White-bellied Bustard (but that's another and complicated story)). A further point to ponder is that two authorities (Snow 1978 and Johnsgard 1991) suggest that, if this taxon is to be split up, barrowii (South Africa) and mackenziei (the subspecies found from northern Namibia to central Africa) should be grouped together and distinct from the more northern forms (but it's a tough call, as the latter is intermediate, with our bird's golden hindneck but also with the tawny breast band of northern birds). This would mean we would still only have one species in southern Africa and it would not be endemic (contra SASOL3). Hope this helps. Thanks. Regards - David Allan

David Allan
Curator of Birds
Durban Natural Science Museum