Nepal House Martin - Taxonomy

Taxonomy

The Nepal House Martin was first described by British entomologist Frederic Moore in 1854, and placed in a new genus Delichon created by Moore and American naturalist Thomas Horsfield. The specimen or its description was attributed by Moore to Brian Houghton Hodgson and early literature sometimes refers to in as Hodgson's Martin. Some older taxonomic sources such as those by S D Ripley specify the binomial author as "Hodgson = Moore in Horsfield & Moore, 1854". Its closest relatives are the two other members of the genus, the Asian House Martin and the Common House Martin. This martin has a distinctive subspecies, D. n. cuttingi, described by American biologist Ernst W. Mayr in 1941 from a specimen taken near the Burma-Yunnan border. White-throated birds in the southern extension of the range are similar in appearance to the nominate subspecies, but because of their geographical separation are sometimes considered to be a third race, D. n. bartletti. Delichon is an anagram of the Ancient Greek term χελιδών (chelīdōn), meaning 'swallow', and nipalense refers to Nepal, where the type specimen was obtained.