Bird Species New To Science - The Meise and AMNH Reviews

The Meise and AMNH Reviews

During the 20th century, ornithologists published a number of periodic reviews of newly described species. The purpose of each of these was to collect together in a single paper, for ease of reference, all new species' descriptions published in the period of study, and to present an analysis of these, indicating which represent valid species, and which, for various reasons, do not.

The first such review was published in 1934, by the ornithologist Wilhelm Meise, covering the period 1920 to 1934. Meise presented his review to the Eighth International Ornithological Congress (IOC) in Oxford. The review listed 600 new species' names described in that period. Meise was of the opinion that between 135 and 200 represented good species. At the ninth IOC in 1938, Meise presented a second paper, listing 23 new species described in the intervening period, plus a further 36 which had been described during 1920-1934 and not covered in the earlier paper. Meise's papers were:

• Meise, W. (1934) Fortschritte der ornithologischen Systematik seit 1920 Proc. VIII Cong. Internat. Ornith. pp. 49–189
• Meise, W. (1938) Exposition de types d'oiseaux nouvellement décrits au Muséum de Paris Proc. IX Cong. Internat. Ornith. pp. 46–51

After the Second World War, ornithologists based at museums in the American Museum of Natural History produced further reviews; again, each of these listed newly described species and presented an analysis, indicating which were and were not good species. To date, six such papers have been compiled; they are, in chronological order:

• Zimmer, J. T. & E. Mayr (1943) New species of birds described from 1938 to 1941 Auk 60(2): 249-262 PDF fulltext
• Mayr, E. (1957) New species of birds described from 1941 to 1955 Journal for Ornithology 98: 22-35
• Mayr, E. (1971) New species of birds described from 1956 to 1965 J. Ornithol. 112: 302-316
• Mayr, E. & F. Vuilleumier (1983) New species of birds described from 1966 to 1975 J. Ornithol. 124: 217-232
• Vuilleumier, F. & E. Mayr (1987) New species of birds described from 1976 to 1980 J. Ornithol. 128: 137-150
• Vuilleumier, François, Mary LeCroy & Ernst Mayr (1992) New species of birds described from 1981 to 1990 Bull. B.O.C. 112A: 267-309.

No further detailed analyses have been published since the 1992 paper, although the British magazine Birding World has published two articles by Oscar van Rootselaar listing newly described species since 1990:

• van Rootselaar, Oscar (1999) New birds for the World: species discovered during 1980 - 1999 Birding World 12: 286-293
• van Rootselaar, Oscar (2002) New birds for the World: species described during 1999 - 2002 Birding World 15: 428-431