Paulo J. S. G. Ferreira

List of species Pictures of a Jynx torquilla

List of species, common names and dictionaries

I am occasionally asked to translate the common name of a bird from Portuguese to English or vice-versa. Sometimes I am asked for the common name (English or Portuguese) of the bird with a given scientific name. These and related tasks are often trivial, but sometimes there are difficulties. This page might be useful if you happen to face one of these tasks.

I generated a list of species (about 80K) of the birds of Portugal and Europe, with the scientific names (about 600 species), and the English and Portuguese common names. This list (which also contains orders and families) may be helpful if you need to quickly translate one of the names to the other.

I have put together a more complete list, containing the 985 Portuguese common names proposed by Costa et al. in 2000, along with the corresponding English common names as found in the well-known Howard and Moore and Sibley and Monroe checklists. The list (about 113K) is available in several forms:

The Howard and Moore (HM) and Sibley and Monroe (SM) checklists of the birds of the world are comprehensive and very well known. HM mentions 9365 species (with 33 duplicated common names, corresponding to 66 species) and SM mentions 9702 species. For several reasons there are many differences between them. The differences as well as the similarities are summarised in the following tables:

It is probably worthwhile to explain in what sense I am using the expressions similar common name and non-similar common name. Two common names are similar if they are equal, or if they differ very slightly (presence or absence of hyphens, lowercase versus uppercase, Sparrow Hawk versus Sparrowhawk, and so on). Obviously, two common names are non-similar if they are not similar.

Universidade de Aveiro
The home page of Paulo J. S. G. Ferreira
Overview Research Birds Contact	List of species Pictures of a Jynx torquilla List of species, common names and dictionaries I am occasionally asked to translate the common name of a bird from Portuguese to English or vice-versa. Sometimes I am asked for the common name (English or Portuguese) of the bird with a given scientific name. These and related tasks are often trivial, but sometimes there are difficulties. This page might be useful if you happen to face one of these tasks. I generated a list of species (about 80K) of the birds of Portugal and Europe, with the scientific names (about 600 species), and the English and Portuguese common names. This list (which also contains orders and families) may be helpful if you need to quickly translate one of the names to the other. I have put together a more complete list, containing the 985 Portuguese common names proposed by Costa et al. in 2000, along with the corresponding English common names as found in the well-known Howard and Moore and Sibley and Monroe checklists. The list (about 113K) is available in several forms: Ordered according to the book by Costa et al. Sorted by scientific name Sorted by the Portuguese common name proposed by Costa et al. Sorted by the English common name in the Howard and Moore checklist Sorted by the English common name in the Sibley and Monroe checklist The Howard and Moore (HM) and Sibley and Monroe (SM) checklists of the birds of the world are comprehensive and very well known. HM mentions 9365 species (with 33 duplicated common names, corresponding to 66 species) and SM mentions 9702 species. For several reasons there are many differences between them. The differences as well as the similarities are summarised in the following tables: Scientific names found in HM but not in SM (916 species) Scientific names found in SM but not in HM (1253 species) Scientific names found in HM as well as in SM (8449 species) Scientific names found in HM as well as in SM, with the same common name (4866 species) Scientific names found in HM as well as in SM, with different common names (3583 species) Scientific names found in HM as well as in SM, with similar common names (5901 species) Scientific names found in HM as well as in SM, with non-similar common names (2548 species) Common names found in HM but not in SM (4028 species) Common names found in SM but not in HM (4365 species) Common names found in HM as well as in SM, and their scientific names according to HM and SM (5337 species) Common names found in HM as well as in SM, with the same scientific names (4845 species) Common names found in HM as well as in SM, with different scientific names (492 species) It is probably worthwhile to explain in what sense I am using the expressions similar common name and non-similar common name. Two common names are similar if they are equal, or if they differ very slightly (presence or absence of hyphens, lowercase versus uppercase, Sparrow Hawk versus Sparrowhawk, and so on). Obviously, two common names are non-similar if they are not similar.
Generated: 22:42, March 17, 2011 (original last modified 19:16, November 25, 2009)