Species names within the genus Agapornis
Part 3 – Agapornis roseicollis
By Dirk Van den Abeele,
Ornitho-Genetics VZW
Published in Agapornis.info the BVA-International magazine of June 2023
As probably one of the most popular among the lovebird species Agapornis roseicollis has quite a long history when it comes to its naming and the first mention of this species dates back to 1793, as far as we know.
1793. At that time about 500 stuffed birds were auctioned off by the auction house Eimbeck in Hamburg. For the identification of the birds and the drafting of the sales catalogue Anton August Heinrich Lichtenstein, head of an important ‘classical college’ in Hamburg, was asked. A lot of species turned out to be new to him. This included Agapornis roseicollis. He did not know this species and it had probably not been described before either. He had taken note of Agapornis pullarius described by Linneaus and suspected that the stuffed bird, which was put on sale, was a possible sub species. He called them Psittacus pullarius var. nova capensis. This means as much as the new version of Psittacus pullarius (at that time the name for Agapornis pullarius) and capensis refers to South Africa because, as far as he knew, the bird came from (then) South Africa.
1817. In Nouveau Dictionnaire D’histoire Naturelle part 25 Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot, a French ornithologist who lived from 1748 until 1831, described Agapornis roseicollis for the first time and called them Psittacus roseicollis – La Perruche Rose-Gorge. Roseicollis is derived from the Latin roseus (pink coloured) collis (neck) [1].
1820. The German researcher Heinrich Kuhl (1797–1821) describes in Psittacorum in Nova Acta Academia Caesarea Leopoldino-Carol Germanica Curiosorum, also Agapornis roseicollis. This description was based on skins which were found in a museum in Paris and Luzern. These were labelled as Psittacus parasiticus. Heinrich Kuhl was only 24 years old when he died but he did have an exceptional talent for taxonomy. He also described multiple other species.
1826. In part 8 of General Zoology, or systematic natural history, or systematic natural History James Francis Stephens (1792 – 1852) mentions Agapornis roseicollis under the name Psittacula roseicollis. Contrary to Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot, who classified the birds under the genus Psittacus, he classified them within the genus Since roseicollis in Latin is an adjective and the grammatical ending is ‘is’, it remains the same for both a grammatically female or male genus name, in other words, if the name is used with Psittacus or Psittacula, it remains unchanged in Latin, contrary to nouns.
1836. Prideaux John Selby introduced the genus Agapornis for the members of the family of dwarf parrots from Africa.
1842. Hugh Edwin Strickland (1811 – 1853) published as a member of a specially organized committee a document listing the basic rules of the zoological nomenclature. These rules, which are now known as the Strickland code states among other that, if multiple names are used within the same taxon, only the first published name should be accepted as valid. This means that all members of the genus Agapornis had to be categorized within this genus. Since this is the first and only name given to this genus. The entries of Psittacus and Psittacula were dropped, since these names were at that time already used for all parakeets/parrots.
1849 – 51. The Hungarian explorer László Magyar (1818–1864) describes in his book, about what at time was called German-South-West-Africa (currently Namibia), Agapornis roseicollis as Psittacula passerina. With the name passerina he refers to the fact that the birds were only the same size as a sparrow and were found frequently on the ground scavenging for food.
1852. In Contributions to Ornithology for 1851- 1852, Hugh Edwin Strickland & Philip Lutley Sclater(1829 – 1913) applied the guidelines of 1842 and mentioned Agapornis roseicollis, as it should be, within the genus
1874. In the Proceedings of the Scientific Meetings of the Zoological Society of London for the Year 1874, (these are actually the minutes of meetings of the Zoological Society of London) Alfred Henry Garrod (1846 – 1879) mentions a list of birds which were being examined by them. In this list you will not find Agapornis roseicollis but Agapornis roseicapilla. Taxonomists are certain this is a mistake and this name it therefore classified under ‘Lapsus for roseicollis.’ (They were probably partaking in some wine at that point? ?)
1892. The second ‘International Congress of Zoology’, decided to acknowledge the tenth edition of ‘Systema Naturae’, from 1758 and the accompanying binominal nomenclature as the basis for the ‘Zoological nomenclature’. The name Agapornis roseicollis fits perfectly within these guidelines and should therefore be retained as the first name used.
1946. in Zoologische Anzeiger Leipzig the German Hans von Boetticher (1886 –1958) proposes to classify Agapornis roseicollis, Agapornis personatus, Agapornis fischeri, Agapornis lilianae and Agapornis nigrigenis in a sub genus Amoravis. No one followed this recommendation. DNA research has recently shown that Agapornis roseicollis cannot really be placed with the other four in one and the same group [2]
1952. In Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club B. P. Hall introduced Agapornis roseicollis catumbella as a sub species for Agapornis roseicollis. The colour of these birds was a bit brighter. Personally I doubt the existence of this sub species [3]. The name catumbella refers to the village Catumbela in the province Benguela in Angola, where the skins used for her research, came from.
1973. Forshaw mentions in Parrots of the World both Agapornis roseicollis and Agapornis roseicollis catumbella. Other check lists and authors complied.
Voilà, as far as I know these were the main phases in the evolution of the name Agapornis roseicollis. In the next article we will discuss Agapornis taranta.
Keep up the good work!!
Dirk
Literature
[1] J. A. Joblin, Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm, 2010.
[2] A. Manegold en L. Podsiadlowski, ‘On the systematic position of the Black-collared Lovebird Agapornis swindernianus (Agapornithinae, Psittaciformes)’, J. Ornithol., pp. 1–9, 2014, doi: 10.1007/s10336-013-1039-z.
[3] D. Van den Abeele, Lovebirds Compendium, 1ste dr. Warffum- The Netherlands: About Pets, 2016.
