Galapagos Islands: checklist of known birds on islands per Charles Darwin Foundation

CDF Checklist of Galapagos Birds
Gustavo Jiménez-Uzcátegui, David A. Wiedenfeld, F. Hernán Vargas, Howard L. Snell
Last updated: 22 Nov 2012
Abstract
This Checklist of Galapagos Birds includes a total of all 181 taxa reported from the Galapagos Islands.
For each name, detailed information is provided: its Galapagos distribution in islands groups or bioregions generated from the
specimen records, comments about the taxonomy (especially synonyms), the origin (native and introduced), taxon status (accepted
vs. rejected records) and relevant literature references.
Introduction
This publication lists all species of Galapagos Birds currently known.
Birds are characterized by a constant body temperature, a pulmonary respiratory system, beaks, bodies covered in
feathers, two legs, and two wings. Their reproduction is oviparous.
Of the 178 species recorded in Galapagos, 56 are endemic and native.
At present, no birds are known to be extinct in the Archipelago, but extinctions have occurred locally on some
islands.
Methods
This checklist of all known Galapagos Birds is automatically generated using the online database of the Charles Darwin Foundation
Galapagos Species Checklist.
All CDF Galapagos Species Checklists represent the synthesis of many different records: literature citations, data from previously
unpublished reports (grey literature), specimen records of natural history collections located in Galapagos and all over the world. To
the best of their knowledge authors of the individual checklists revised all available data. When new information becomes available,
the taxonomy of a group changes or new species are discovered, the CDF online database and thus this publication becomes
updated.
For many poorly known species groups the higher taxonomic classification still regularly changes according to how our knowledge
about species being related changes. In many well known groups the phylogeny is somewhat stable, but to avoid confusion, in
particular for groups where taxonomic changes are frequent, all checklists presented here are sorted alphabetical according to genus
name and specific epithet. Please refer to the website for the currently accepted taxonomic hierarchy of each group.
Please be aware that the distribution presented here is automatically generated from specimen records and does not always
accurately reflect the known distribution for all species.
For marine species, the distribution generally refers to the five main bioregions of the archipelago (Far Northern, Northern, Western,
South Eastern and the Elisabeth Bay Bioregion). For the terrestrial species more than 120 islands, islets and small rocks have been
aggregated into Islands Groups, thus, for example, the island group “Santa Cruz” includes smaller islands like Santa Fé, Plaza Norte,
Plaza Sur, Baltra, Daphne Mayor, Daphne Minor, and others.
IUCN red-list assessments presented here may deviate from the global IUCN list for the following reasons:
• for well known species groups like vascular plants or vertebrates updates proposed to the IUCN are shown instead of the
outdated, but currently accepted status;
• for poorly known species groups (e.g., lichenized fungi) a general assessment is currently not possible and the list presented here
is a regional red-list list for Galapagos archipelago.
Numbers of the species included in this list are auto-generated. Adding up the number of species in each category will not always
equal the total number indicated. Read List of Birds