Andean Laniisoma

About the Andean Laniisoma

The Andean laniisoma (Laniisoma buckleyi) is a species of passerine bird in the family Tityridae, the tityras, becards, and allies. It is found Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. The Andean laniisoma was originally described in 1880 as Ptilochloris buckleyi in the family Cotingidae. It was later reassigned to genus Laniisoma that William Swainson had erected in 1832. Well into the twentieth century authors kept Laniisoma in Cotingidae. Several early twenty-first century studies confirmed its placement in Tityridae and taxonomic systems made the reassignment.

The Andean laniisoma's further taxonomy is unsettled. It was long treated as a subspecies of L. elegans, which had the English name "shrike-like cotinga" and now is called by most the Brazilian laniisoma. In the 2010s taxonomists began separating L. buckleyi from L. elegans, leaving the latter as a monotypic species. The IOC, the Clements taxonomy, and AviList have all recognized the split. They assign the Andean laniisoma these three subspecies:

L. b. venezuelense Phelps, WH & Gilliard, 1941 L. b. buckleyi (Sclater, PL & Salvin, 1880) L. b. cadwaladeri Carriker, 1935 BirdLife International... Wikipedia →