Slate-coloured grosbeak explained

The slate-coloured grosbeak (Saltator grossus) is a species of grosbeak in the family Thraupidae. Most of its range is the Amazon in South America, but it is also found in forests of the Chocó in Ecuador and Colombia, and southern Central America from Panama to Honduras.

Taxonomy

In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the slate-coloured grosbeak in the supplement to his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in "America". He used the French name Le gros-bec bleu d'Amérique and the Latin name Coccothraustes americana caerulea.^[1] Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.^[2] When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson in his Ornithologie.^[2] One of these was the slate-coloured grosbeak. Linnaeus included a terse description, coined the binomial name Loxia grossa and cited Brisson's work.^[3] The specific name grossa, grossus is Latin for "thick", "rough" or "coarse".^[4] The type locality has been restricted to French Guiana.^[5] This species is now placed in the genus Saltator that was introduced by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1816.^[6]

Notes and References

1. Book: Brisson, Mathurin Jacques . Mathurin Jacques Brisson . 1760 . Ornithologie, ou, Méthode contenant la division des oiseaux en ordres, sections, genres, especes & leurs variétés . Supplement . French, Latin . Paris . Jean-Baptiste Bauche . 89–91, Plate 5 fig 1 . The two stars (**) at the start of the paragraph indicates that Brisson based his description on the examination of a specimen.
2. Allen . J.A. . Joel Asaph Allen . 1910 . Collation of Brisson's genera of birds with those of Linnaeus . Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History . 28 . 317–335 . 2246/678 .
3. Book: Linnaeus, Carl . Carl Linnaeus . 1766 . Systema naturae : per regna tria natura, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis . 12th . 1, Part 1 . Laurentii Salvii . Holmiae (Stockholm) . Latin . 307 .
4. Web site: Jobling . J.A. . 2018 . Key to Scientific Names in Ornithology . del Hoyo . J. . Elliott . A. . Sargatal . J. . Christie . D.A. . de Juana . E. . Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive . Lynx Edicions . 2 April 2018 .
5. Book: Paynter . Raymond A. Jr . 1970 . Check-list of Birds of the World . 13 . Museum of Comparative Zoology . Cambridge, Massachusetts . 227 .
6. Book: Vieillot, Louis Pierre . Louis Pierre Vieillot . Analyse d'une Nouvelle Ornithologie Élémentaire . Deterville/self . 1816 . Paris . 32 . French.