Use of AOU checklist

[Leonard Krishtalka]

        Thanks for your response.  Actually, a number of ornithologists have
responded to me privately rather than copying the Taxacom list.

At 12:13 AM 04/20/1997 -0700, Steve Halford wrote:
>On Thu, 17 Apr 1997, Leonard Krishtalka wrote:
>
>>        A working group of the Commission on Environmental Cooperation,
>> NAFTA, is considering a biodiversity project that will entail the electronic
>> assembly, integration and dissemination of occurrence data forf North
>> American birds from existing specimen-based and observation-based databases.
>>
>>         One of the component tasks is to identify a taxonomic authority for
>> bird names.  Would this be the 1983 AOU checklist (6th edition)?  Are there
>> other authority files that ornithologists commonly use?  Please advise and
>> thank you in advance for your help.
>>
>Since you don't seem to have been overwhelmed by repies from *real*
>ornithologists:
>
>The AOU checklist would seem to be the logical taxonomic authority,  but
>is subject to biennial revisions published in the October(?) issue of
>"The Auk" in every odd-numberd year.  Thus there have been six revisions to
>the sixth edition to date,  and I believe a seventh edition is scheduled
>for publication this year.
>
>Steve (halford at sfu.ca)
>Museum Technician
>Simon Fraser University
>Burnaby, B.C., Canada
>
>

__________________________________________

A theory that you can't explain to a bartender is probably no damn good.

                        Ernest Rutherford

Leonard Krishtalka
Director
Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center
The University of Kansas
Lawrence, KS 66045
phone:  913/864-4540
fax:       913/864-5335
e-mail:  krishtalka at ukans.edu