WELCOME TO WORLDBIRDNAMES.ORG

The site supplements the book
"BIRDS OF THE WORLD Recommended English Names"
By Frank Gill And Minturn Wright
Princeton University Press, 2006

Our Goal

Our goal on behalf of the International Ornithological Congress (IOC) is to facilitate communication in ornithology and conservation through the use of a standard set of English names of the world bird species.

To this end we provide a complete list of the extant birds of the world that we update regularly to include changes of names, additions of newly described species as well as proposed splits and lumps, and taxonomic comments. The names adopted and recommended follow explicit guidelines for spelling and construction that increase clarity and consistent application.

The IOC list of world bird species is available through Avibase, thanks to Denis LePage and Bird Studies Canada. The powerful Avibase database allows users to create checklists for different localities using alternative world lists.

Thanks for participating.

Frank Gill, Minturn Wright, and David Donsker  

This Website provides

  • HTML lists of the species of birds of the world, including all updates for Version 1.6
  • Update summaries of new species and proposed splits, taxonomic revisions, and changes of names
  • Downloadable files of Version 1.6
    • Excel file (XLS) - Life List format, including species ranges (1.3 Mb)
    • Excel file (XLS) - Master list including species ranges and comments in computer format (1.3 Mb)
    • CSV version for database projects (470 kb) [Note: This file is encoded as UTF-8 and will not open properly in Excel. If you plan to use Excel, please download one of the XLS files above.]
    • XML version for website projects  (4 Mb)
  • Comparison by David Matson and Dave Sargeant of the IOC list (Version 1.5) vs Clements (6e) - download Excel file (3.3 Mb)
  • An overview of the IOC English Names project and its original participants
  • The value of standardization of English bird names
  • Spelling guidelines for English bird names, including hyphens
  • Reviews and suggestions for improvement

 

Suggested Citation:

Gill, F., Wright, M. & Donsker, D. (2008). IOC World Bird Names (version 1.6). Available at http://www.worldbirdnames.org/ [Accessed xxxxxxxx].