American Ornithologists’ Union

American Ornithologists' Union Website

This organization commonly called AOU is the oldest one in America dedicated to the formal study of birds. This year the AOU celebrates its 125th Anniversary, during these years its members have developed an extended and diverse ornithological society open to scientific ornithologists, students, conservationists and birders.

The AOU website provide excellent information about birds in North America and one of the most important work shared is the Check-list of North and South American Birds. The Committee on Classification and Nomenclature of North and Middle American Birds produces an official Check-list of North American Birds, with the purpose of creating a standard classification and nomenclature.

Actually the check-list includes 2046 bird species known in the geographic area from North Pole to boundary shared by Panama and Colombia, including Hawaiian Islands and some Antillean Islands.

Every year Guatemalans check the publication proposed for AOU Committee in order to maintain update our bird lists, because in the last two years changes have affected birds regional endemic to North Central America, like splitting genera Megascops from Otus, which means that the new scientific name of the Bearded Screech-Owl is Mesgascops barbarus; or genus Asturina merged into Buteo which changes the scientific name of a common raptor in Guatemala, GrayHawk, to Buteo nitidus.




Gray Hawk (Buteo nitidus)


Posted by Maynor Ovando


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