A little quiz!

[Dave Williams]

Who can tell me what these two African species have in common?

Narina Trogan and Klaas's Cuckoo

 

[Towlersonsafari]

Very good question @Dave Williamsbut thanks to the splendid "whose Bird" they are both named after individual  Khoi Khoi people although the chap who named the Trogon Le Vaillant gave the name Narina to his supposed mistress as he did not like her actual name!

[Dave Williams]

@Towlersonsafari I'm impressed! Close to the story I have just read. Of 2300 bird species only two are named after Black Africans. The version I read was Levaillant couldn't pronounce his mistresses name so gave her one he could. Klaas was his African assistant. As the author of the book I have just received says, a shame more are not associated with native Black Africans as it promotes a sense of ownership and connection which in turn makes them connected to conservation of their species.

The book I have is this one:-

https://pelagicpublishing.com/products/101-curious-tales-of-east-african-birds

 

Easy reading and some interesting facts that I certainly didn't know about.

 

I just googled Who's Bird ? and it's available for as little as £3.22 including postage, that has to be worth a punt !

[Towlersonsafari]

It certainly is- it tries to cover all the birds that were named after people, who the people were and there are some real rogues1 it is a nice book to take on holiday to dip in and out of- and I agree about the sentiment @Dave Williams

[Dave Williams]

8 minutes ago, Towlersonsafari said:

It certainly is- it tries to cover all the birds that were named after people, who the people were and there are some real rogues1 it is a nice book to take on holiday to dip in and out of- and I agree about the sentiment @Dave Williams

 

Mine's now on the way but still another available.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Whose-Bird-Women-Commemorated-Common/dp/0713666471/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1S2162YH05PQO&keywords=Whose+Bird%3F&qid=1697808101&s=books&sprefix=whose+bird+%2Cstripbooks%2C83&sr=1-1

[inyathi]

During his South African expeditions, Francois Le Vaillant's mistress was a Gonaqua Khoekhoe (or Khoikhoi) woman, since the Gonaqua had a click speech language, I would imagine he simply couldn't pronounce her name properly, and chose Narina in preference, Google tells me that the name Narina is from Persian and means pomegranate flower, I knew from reading about Le Vaillant, that he gave her the name Narina because it was the name of a flower, I can only assume that it is the same Persian name. Since his friend and assistant Klaas was also Khoekhoe, I'd guess that he couldn't pronounce his real name either and so called him Klaas, he collected the first scientific specimen of his cuckoo, so Levaillant named it after him. He also changed his own name, as he was originally Francois Vaillant and decided that that wasn't posh enough, and so changed it to Le Vaillant, although it is normally written Levaillant, in the various bird species named after him, like Levaillant's Cisticola, Levaiilant's Cuckoo, and Levaiilant's Woodpecker, the Crested Barbet is also sometimes called Levaiilant's Barbet and has the scientific name Trachyphonus vaillantii . It is perhaps a little ironic that the Crested Barbet has that scientific name, as Le Vaillant was not a fan of Linnaeus's binomial naming system, he just liked to name birds in French, it was he who gave an African eagle the name Bateleur meaning tightrope walker, because they way they move their wings when they fly, reminded him of a how tightrope walkers move their arms to stay balanced. 

 

Narina
Francois Levaillant, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

 

Le Vaillant's expeditions were financed by a Dutchman Jacob Temminck, who was a treasurer of the Dutch East India Company and a naturalist, Le Vaillant sent him some 2,000 bird skins collected on his expeditions, Temminck passed this collection of skins on to his son Coenraad Jacob Temminck, who was a noted ornithologist and he has a host of species named after him and not just birds, but also mammals, fish and reptiles, mostly from Africa and Asia, like Temminck's Courser, and Temminck's Pangolin, one species listed on Wikipedia that I had never heard of before, has the great name Temminck's Mysterious Bat, perhaps unsurprisingly there isn't much information at all online about this bat species, it is still a mystery 183 after it was named.  

 

@Dave WilliamsI don't have that book by Colin Beale, it looks interesting I might have to look into getting a copy. Colin was a member for a while @TZBirder, but his profile says he was last here in 2013.

Edited October 20, 2023 by inyathi

[Kitsafari]

@inyathi fascinating stories about the origins of the names of the birds. I had always liked the name Batelur but didn't know it meant a tightrope walker. sometimes we also become batelurs in life!

Edited October 21, 2023 by Kitsafari

[offshorebirder]

This is an excellent topic - thanks to all the participants for the info you have provided.

[Zarek Cockar]

You may all also enjoy these titles:
- Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names: https://www.nhbs.com/helm-dictionary-of-scientific-bird-names-book#:~:text=The Helm Dictionary of Scientific,commemorated in the scientific names.

- The Eponym Dictionary of Mammals (an Eponym is a name honouring someone, like Narina or Klaas): https://www.amazon.com/Eponym-Dictionary-Mammals-Bo-Beolens/dp/0801893046

- The Eponym Dictionary of Birds: https://www.nhbs.com/the-eponym-dictionary-of-birds-book#:~:text=This extraordinary new work lists,biography of the person concerned.

 

[Dave Williams]

No sooner had my ordered copy of "Whose Bird?" arrive when I read this!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67298103

 

If they are not splitting species they are renaming them, all gets very confusing!

[Galana]

They can do what they like with their own birds but keep their mits off ours.