[Solved] Correspondence of Clements Green vs. IOC Gray-chinned Sunbird

Hi David,

Thanks for posting.

Yes, this is a never-ending task attempting to get even 99% of these 35k+ things correctly matched between the two. 

Yes! You can change Things up a bit here. This only takes 60 seconds if you know how. But just reading my instructions below will take longer than that. But I give you pictures and step-by-step.

Let's get started with this one as an example, and now you know how to do this for any other such discrepancies.

Bring up the Taxonomy Viewer (F8), or Features | Advanced | Taxonomy Viewer in the menu, or the red button in the toolbar with 3 horizontal lines.

Select IOC 11.2 from the dropdown and click the Load button. 

Navigate to the Grey-chinned Sunbird in the tree. Most easily done by using the Search pane at the bottom of this window, as shown below.

Make sure you select that node if it isn't already selected.

Right-click on it and choose "Cross reference selected Thing" and confirm that this Thing is not reference by any other taxonomic lists. It shouldn't be.

Confirm you have no sightings for this Thing by using the View Sightings Setup window as such.

If you have sightings, reassign them to Clements 2021 subspecies and continue.

Back in the Taxonomy Viewer, Delete this Thing from IOC 11.2 by selecting this node and clicking on the red button with the "X" in this window's toolbar.

Now, we are going to add Clements 2021 A. rectirostris tephrolaemus to the IOC 11.2 taxonomy. 

Click on the Copy button in the Taxonomy Viewer toolbar. Red button with grey and white circles.

The Taxonomy Copy window opens. Enter Clements 2021 into the top left dropdown. It auto-loads the left side with the Clements list. The right side already has IOC 11.2 in it.

Expand left and right sides to Anthreptes rectirostris manually. (Passeriformes - Nectariniidae - Anthreptes)

Drag the Anthreptes rectirostris tephrolaemus node from the left Clements side and drop it on the A. rectirostris node on the right side, as shown below.

Close this window. You will return to the Taxonomy Viewer window.

Close the Taxonomy Viewer and reopen, load IOC 11.2 and navigate back to A. rectirostris in the tree. You will see it now has the subspecies we dragged over: tephrolaemus. 

Select this subspecies node and click the Edit button (red button with Pencil) in this window's toolbar.

Edit it as shown below.

Click Update.

Now you have it.

Right-click for the popup menu and choose Cross reference... and you can see that this is now the same thing as A. rectirostris tephrolaemus in Clements 2021.

I hope this made sense. Let me know please.

Dear Jeff,

Thanks very much.  Your instructions were very clear. All my sightings now appear in both lists.

If I understand this correctly, I could also have started by deleting the subspecies in Clements, copying the species from IOC, and then demoting it to a subspecies.  That is, there is nothing special about Clements to make it the source for all such changes.  Right?

That is correct David. However, I gathered from your first post that you had sightings already attached to the Clements subspecies and not the IOC species. So it made it easier to make the move this way. Saved an extra step.

Take care. 

FYI: this post got me doing some in-depth analysis and data crunching to see if I have more of these and why I didn't catch them. This is enough to make Einstein's brain hurt.

In either case, below are 11 mismatches between Clements 2021 and IOC 11.2 that are the same as the one you brought up here. This list should be complete. 

In the first list with 8 mismatches, you would assign the IOC things on the right to the Clements things on the left; and on the second list with 3 mismatches vice versa.

If you do this, be sure to check for sightings first so you don't orphan any sightings on the change if you do them.

8 Clements Subspecies to IOC Species matches that don't share the same ThingID
Brace's Emerald elegans [Riccordia bracei elegans] <> Gould's Emerald [Riccordia elegans]
Stewart Island Shag stewarti [Leucocarbo chalconotus stewarti] <> Foveaux Shag [Leucocarbo stewarti]
Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird makawai [Pogoniulus bilineatus makawai] <> White-chested Tinkerbird [Pogoniulus makawai]
Scarlet-banded Barbet fitzpatricki [Capito wallacei fitzpatricki] <> Sira Barbet [Capito fitzpatricki]
Dull Flycatcher eichhorni [Myiagra hebetior eichhorni] <> Velvet Flycatcher [Myiagra eichhorni]
Mrs. Moreau's Warbler rubehoensis [Scepomycter winifredae rubehoensis] <> Rubeho Warbler [Scepomycter rubehoensis]
Sulawesi Leaf Warbler nesophilus [Phylloscopus sarasinorum nesophilus] <> Sulawesi Leaf Warbler [Phylloscopus nesophilus]
Yellow-breasted Brushfinch nigrifrons [Atlapetes latinuchus nigrifrons] <> Black-fronted Brushfinch [Atlapetes nigrifrons]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
3 IOC Subspecies to Clements Species matches that don't share the same ThingID
Pink Pigeon duboisi [Nesoenas mayeri duboisi] <> Reunion Pigeon [Nesoenas duboisi]
Malagasy White-eye anjuanensis [Zosterops maderaspatanus anjuanensis] <> Anjouan White-eye [Zosterops anjuanensis]
Black-backed Thrush atrigena [Zoothera talaseae atrigena] <> Bougainville Thrush [Zoothera atrigena]

I am not going to update last year's tax lists with these changes as we are so close to the new ones being ready and available. And I don't want to cause confusion and a lot of work for folks.

For sure, this year's releases will have this data crunching done before release.

Nonetheless, mixing/matching IOC to Clements and vice versa, can be fraught with issues.

For example, there are 1,156 things (24 species and 1,132 subspecies) in Clements 2021 tax list that are NOT represented in the IOC 11.2 list, and 834 in the reverse order. I know! How can there be that many. Most are subspecies, but there are a few species.

For example: 

• Clements 2021 has subspecies Horornis flavolivaceus alexanderi, but not IOC 11.2.
• Both have H. flavolivaceus with all the same subspecies but this one.

I have code that checks for splits and lumps where H. f. alexanderi becomes H. alexanderi, or vice versa. None of these 1,156 Clements 2021 Things have this issue.

IOC releases each year a spreadsheet that matches IOC species to Clements species and vice versa. But this does not include subspecies. This list does show that IOC does NOT classify the missing species from Clements 2021, but we are left guessing on the subspecies.

I show that 24 species in Clements 2021 are not attached to things in IOC 11.2. But this spreadsheet lists 40 species in Clements that IOC does NOT have a match for. I believe the 16 others are assigned to IOC subspecies.

Still hard to believe that Clements 2021 has 1,132 subspecies not recognized/defined by IOC 11.2. More later.

Continuing...

For example the IOC spreadsheet that matches IOC to Clements species shows that the Clements Reunion Pigeon does not match anything in IOC; more correctly does not match a species in IOC. That is because it matches the IOC subspecies Nesoenas mayeri duboisi, known as Pink Pigeon duboisi. 

Clements has 3 subsp of Chrysococcyx cupreus and IOC considers it monotypic; no subspecies.

If anyone knows of a match for these example, that I am missing, please let me know. 

QED