Editor's Notes

As you skim the material in Birds of the World, you will find “Editor’s Notes” inserted into many species accounts. The purpose of these notes is to provide the reader with useful caveats related to the particular sections they might be reading.

We invite you to learn more about the history of Birds of the World and the dynamic source content that powers the platform. This provides some context for the Editor’s notes.

Due to the merger of content from various sources, especially related to differing taxonomies, there are cases where the written text does not perfectly match up with the current taxonomy, or in the worst cases the two may contradict each other.

Recognizing this may be a source of confusion, the BOW editorial team decided that it would be preferable to inform the reader of places where these cases could occur, rather than have readers discover these issues on their own. These caveats will be removed over time as accounts are edited and updated.

Below are examples of the Editor’s Notes and the explanation for each type:

Splits: The case of a taxonomic split, where content was copied from the same HBW account into multiple BOW accounts. 

Taxonomic note: Split. This account was originally published under a single species in HBW Alive, but in Birds of the World it covers multiple species. We present that original content here, with the goal of developing a more refined species account for this taxon moving forward. Please consider contributing your expertise to update this account.

Lumps or ‘stacked’ accounts: The case of a taxonomic lump where multiple HBW accounts are stacked into a single BOW account.

Taxonomic note: Lump. This account is a combination of multiple species accounts originally published in HBW Alive. That content has been combined and labeled here at the subspecies level. Moving forward we will create a more unified account for this parent taxon. Please consider contributing your expertise to update this account.

Lumps or ‘stacked’ accounts AND ‘Splits’: The rare case of a taxonomic mismatch that includes both splits and lumps, where multiple HBW accounts are stacked into a single BOW account, and content was also potentially added from a split (this can happen in rare cases when a subspecies is handled differently at the species level across the two taxonomies).

Taxonomic note: This account has source material from a combination of multiple species accounts originally published in HBW Alive. Moving forward we will create a more unified account for this parent taxon. Please consider contributing your expertise to update this account.

Distribution article for polytypic taxon from HBW Alive: Notifies the user when a general distribution article is missing and all distribution text is found in the individual subspecies range statements.

Editor’s Note: Additional distribution information for this taxon can be found in the ‘Subspecies’ article above. In the future we will develop a range-wide distribution article.

Systematics Section not updated: Notifies the user about potential asynchrony between the written systematics section and the subspecies treatment.

Editor’s Note: This article requires further editing work to merge existing content into the appropriate Subspecies sections. Please bear with us while this update takes place.

Account contains outdated taxonomy: Notifies the user that the account may contain outdated taxonomy (e.g., scientific and common names).

Editor’s Note: Due to a recent taxonomic revision, this species account is still being edited and may contain content from an earlier version of the account.