Red-tailed Black Cockatoo - Taxonomy and Naming

Taxonomy and Naming

The species complex was first described by the ornithologist John Latham in 1790 as Psittacus banksii, commemorating English botanist Sir Joseph Banks. The Red-tailed Black Cockatoo also has the distinction of being the first bird from Eastern Australia illustrated by a European, as a female, presumably collected at Endeavour River in north Queensland, was sketched by Banks' draughtsman Sydney Parkinson in 1770. Narrowly predating Latham, English naturalist George Shaw described Psittacus magnificus from a specimen collected somewhere in the Port Jackson (now Sydney) region. For many years, the species was referred to as Calyptorhynchus magnificus, proposed by Gregory Mathews in 1927 as Shaw's name had predated Latham's 1790 description. For several decades, Mathews' proposal was accepted by many authorities, although it was unclear whether the original Port Jackson reference had actually referred to the Red-tailed Black or, more likely, the Glossy Black Cockatoo. In 1994, an application to conserve Calyptorhynchus banksii as the scientific name was accepted by the ICZN. The Red-tailed Black Cockatoo is the type species of the genus Calyptorhynchus, the name of which is derived from the Greek calypto-/καλυπτο- "hidden" and rhynchus/ρυγχος "beak". The change was first made by Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest in 1826.

In 1827, Jennings proposed the name Psittacus niger for the bird. The binomial combination had already been used by Carolus Linnaeus for the Lesser Vasa Parrot in 1758, and by Johann Friedrich Gmelin for the Palm Cockatoo in 1788; it was thus invalid even though both other species were already known by different names at the time. Alternate common names include Banks' Black Cockatoo, Banksian Black Cockatoo, or simply Black Cockatoo. Indigenous people of the central Cape York Peninsula have several names for the bird: (minha) pachang in Pakanh; (inh -) inhulg in Uw Oykangand; and (inh -) anhulg in Uw Olkola. (The bracketed prefix (inh- or minha) is a qualifier meaning 'meat' or 'animal'.) Ngarnarrh or KarnamarrTo are terms used by the Gunwinggu of Arnhem Land. In Central Australia, southwest of Alice Springs, the Pitjantjatjara term for the subspecies C. b. samueli is iranti. Karrak is a Noongar term derived from the call for the southwestern race C. b. naso.