Working on the HBWAlive Key to Scientific Names in Ornithology to ensure that the nomenclature and taxonomy therein reflects those in the HBW and BirdLife International illustrated checklist of the birds of the world (del Hoyo & Collar 2016), I discovered a case of preoccupation in the now expanded genus Sylvia.
In vol. 2, p. 498, of the above-mentioned work the genera Pseudoalcippe Bannerman, 1923, Lioptilus Bonaparte, 1850, and Parisoma Swainson, 1831, are subsumed within Sylvia. As a result, the subspecific name Parisoma subcaeruleum ansorgei von Zedlitz, 1921, Orn. Monatsb. 29: 52 (currently Sylvia subcoerulea ansorgei) becomes preoccupied by Lioptilus abyssinicus ansorgei Rothschild, 1918, Bull. Brit. Orn. Cl. 38: 78 (currently Sylvia abyssinica ansorgei). Because the prior ansorgei Rothschild, 1918, was published after 1899 (Art. 23.9 of the Code (ICZN 1999), and as no other names are available for the subspecies ansorgei von Zedlitz, 1921, I propose:
Sylvia subcoerulea iohannis nom. nov.
The name will serve as a new replacement name for Parisoma subcaeruleum ansorgei von Zedlitz, 1921, in Sylvia preoccupied by Lioptilus abyssinicus ansorgei Rothschild, 1918. Under Art. 72.7 of the Code (ICZN 1999), the type of the new name is automatically that of the replaced name, ansorgei von Zedlitz, with the same type locality. The new eponym honours Prof. Dr William John Ansorge (1850–1913) the British physician and zoologist after whom the above-named taxa were originally named.
It should be noted that other recent taxonomic treatments (e.g. Dickinson & Christidis 2014, Gill & Donsker 2017) place ansorgei Rothschild, 1918, and ansorgei von Zedlitz, 1921, as subspecies in different genera, under which circumstances both remain valid names.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Andy Elliott for his guidance in the preparation of this short note. Nomenclature in this paper was reviewed by the Working Group on Avian Nomenclature of the International Ornithologists' Union.
