Species names within the genus Agapornis
Part 2 – Agapornis canus
By Dirk Van den Abeele
Ornitho-Genetics VZW
Published in Agapornis.info the BVA-International magazine of April 2023
Agapornis canus is the only lovebird species which can be found outside of the African mainland. This species has spread its habitat across the coastal regions of the island Madagascar. Although in all likelihood the French set foot on Madagascar circa 1495, it was not until 1760 that we have the first descriptions of Agapornis canus.
Also, the name of this species has undergone many changes. Because of this confusion from the past this bird was known to most aviculturists (in the early 1970s) as Agapornis cana. It was therefore not easy to correct this firmly established term to Agapornis canus and explains why the name cana still pops up regularly in aviculture, even in scientific articles.
I will provide an overview of the history of the name Agapornis canus in taxonomy and we can already start with the first description from 1760.
1760. The first author who mentioned this species is probably Brisson. Mathurin Jacques Brisson lived from 1723 until 1806 and was a French naturalist (which we would now call a biologist). In his book Supplementum Ornithologiæ sive Citationes, descriptionesque antea omissæ & species de novo adjectæ, ad suaquaque genera redactæ from 1760 he described Agapornis canus for the first time, albeit under a different name. He called this bird Psittacula madagascariensis or la petite perruche de Madagascar, the little parrot from Madagascar.
1772. Johann Reinhold Forster (1729 – 1798) was a German naturalist. He describes Agapornis canus under the name Psittacus poliocar in his book Descriptiones animalium quae in itinere ad Maris Australis terras per annos 1772, 1773 et 1774 suscepto collegit observavit et delineavit.
1775. Another French naturalist, Louis-Jean-Marie d’Aubenton (1716 –1799), mentions, 15 years later, in 1775 also ‘la petite perruche de Madagascar’ in part 30 of ‘Planches enluminées d’histoire naturelle’.
1779. In L’histoire naturel des oiseaux from 1779 Buffon called this bird ‘La perruche à tête grise’. Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1707-1788) was a French nobleman and also had the title of count. He was a biologist and in charge of the Royal gardens of the French king Louis XV. In 1749 he wrote the first part of Histoire Naturelle and in total there would be 44 parts. This ‘perruche à tête grise’ is included in part 21.
1781. John Latham (1740–1837) mentions for the first time in English literature these birds in his book A general synopsis of Birds and calls them ‘grey-headed parrakeets’
1788. Johann Gmelin, a German scientist, writes an improved edition of Systema Naturae van Carolus Linnaeus using the title Systema Naturae per Regna Tria Naturae, Secundum Classes, Ordines, Genera, Species, Cum Characteribus, Differentiis, Synonymis, Locis. In this edition Psittacus canus is mentioned for the first time. Canus is Latin and means grey. Because he is also the first one to use a name which meets the taxonomy requirements, the term canus is used as the official name for this species.
1826. In England James Francis Stephens (1792 – 1852) wrote an extensive index of 14 volumes containing a list of the animals known at that time under the title: ‘General Zoology, or systematic natural history, or systematic natural History’. In the second part of volume 14 Agapornis canus can be found under the name Psittacula cana. In other words he used the name given to this species by Gmelin, he only adjusted the genus to Since Psittacula is grammatically female he correctly changed the name of the species to cana.
1832. The German scientist Johann Georg Wagler (1800-1832) mentions in Monographia Psittacorum, in Abhandlungen der Mathematisch-Physicalischen Klasse der Königlich Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Psittacus poliocar which were described by Forster, as a synomnym for Psittacula cana. I have not been able to find this description by Forster.
1836. Prideaux John Selby introduced the name Agapornis for the members of the family of small parrots from Africa. Therefore it should become Agapornis canus from then on.
1854. In Revue et Magasin de Zoologie pure et appliquée by Charles Lucien Bonaparte (1803 – 1857) we find Agapornis canus as Poliopsitta cana. Bonaparte placed this species under a new genus Polliopsitta, in which we found canus as the only species within this genus.
1854. Philip Lutley Sclater (1829 – 1913) mentions in Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, Agapornis canus under the name Agapornis cana. He was the first to place this species in the genus Agapornis, however he did not grammatically alter the grammatical gender of the species. Since the grammatical gender of Agapornis is male, it should of course be canus. A mistake which was adopted, unfortunately, later on by a lot of people.
1863. in the Dutch Tijdschrift voor De Dierkunde, Agapornis canus is still referred to as Psittacula madagascariensis.
1872. The Swedish researcher Carl Jakob Sundevall (1801 – 1875) published a correction (emendation – Nomen correctum) in Methodi naturalis avium disponendarum tentamen, in which he indicates that the genus Poliopsitta which was introduced by Bonaporte in 1854 for Agapornis canus, according to him is not correct and he again placed the species within the genus Agapornis.
1891. James Sibree (1836–1929) is an English missionary who worked in Madagascar. He wrote the article On the Birds of Madagascar, and their Connection with Native Folk-lore, Proverbs, and Superstitions in The Ibis, the International Journal of Avian Science and mentioned in it Agapornis canus under the name Agapornis madagascariensis.
1892. The second International Congress of Zoology, decided to acknowledge the tenth edition of Systema Naturae, from 1758 as the basis for the ‘Zoological nomenclature’. Because the previous names did not meet the requirements stated the name canus which was given by Johann Freidrich Gmelin in 1788 to this species was finally considered to be the valid one. Under the genus Agapornis this then became Agapornis canus.
1918. The only known subspecies Agapornis canus ablectaneus was described by Outram Bangs (1863-1932) in the Bulletin of the Museum Comparative Zoology, at Harvard College in Cambridge. He discovered in various bird collections A. canus which have less of a yellow hue and clearly more of a blue hue across their feathers. Bangs called these Agapornis canus ablectaneus. The addition ablectaneus is derived from ‘lectus’ meaning ‘chosen – selected’.
1924. Despite the fact that Bangs in 1918 correctly named the sub species Agapornis canus ablectaneus, William Lutley Sclater (1863 – 1944) mentions in Systema Avium Ethiopicarum this species again incorrectly as Agapornis cana cana and the sub species as Agapornis cana ablectanea. It is clear that William continued on with the naming his father Philip Lutley Sclater used in 1860 in Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London.
1924. Hans von Boetticher (1886 –1958) mentions Agapornis canus as Agapoornis (Poliopsitta) cana in Zoologische Anzeiger Leipzig. It needs to be stressed that Agapoornis is probably a typing error.
1997. In Handbook of the Birds of the World, del Hoyo,Elliott & Sargatal correct the previous taxonomists and again use the correct A[gapornis] c[anus] canus However for the sub species they again miss the point and mention A[gapornis] c[anus] ablectanea.
2003. The Howard & Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World, corrected this error and mentioned A[gapornis] c[anus] ablectaneus.
As you can see, just like with Agapornis pullarius, the naming and use of the scientific name for this species has been an eventful journey.
The reason why Bonaparte tried to place this species in a separate genus Polliopsitta in 1854 will be apparent for many people. With regard to the shape these birds do not look like most Agapornis. Yet most taxonomists agree now that, mainly based on DNA research, Agapornis canus is still related to the other species within the genus Agapornis [1], [2]. Agapornis canus is considered as the transition/link with the genus Loriculus, which is considered as a distant cousin of the genus Agapornis. Together with Bolbopsittacus, the genera (plural of genus) Loriculus and Agapornis are therefore classified within one sub family Agapornithinae. A beautiful example of how in nature everything is connected.
Sources:
[1] 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.[2] K. L. Provost, L. Joseph, en B. T. Smith, ‘Resolving a phylogenetic hypothesis for parrots: implications from systematics to conservation’, Emu – Austral Ornithol., vol. 118, nr. 1, pp. 7–21, Jan. 2018, doi: 10.1080/01584197.2017.1387030.
