WELCOME TO WORLDBIRDNAMES.ORG

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

Our GoalS

Our initial goal on behalf of the International Ornithological Congress (IOC) was to facilitate communication in ornithology and in the conservation of the world bird species through the consistent use of a reasonable set of English names linked to current species taxonomy. Dynamic advances in taxonomy now challenge us to keep the world bird list current.

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

The IOC World List is a volunteer project with worldwide participation by world birders and professional ornithologists. Thus, in this global world of wiki-style sharing of knowledge, we invite you to help us keep the IOC list accurate, vital, and accessible. You can reach us at worldbirdnames@earthlink.net. We invite your participation, your corrections, and your suggestions for improvement of the IOC World List.

The globa use of this website and the IOC list is encouraging.  Most recently, the wikiproject birds at English Wikipedia has adopted the IOC list as the defacto standard (Kim van der Linde, Duncan Wright 2009).

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

Special thanks to our panel of expert advisors (left panel), to Curtis Hawthorne, David Ringer and Eng-Li Green for website management, and to all active participants.

Frank Gill, Minturn Wright, and David Donsker

 

This Website provides

  • HTML lists of 10,347 species of birds of the world (Version 2.2), with footnote annotations.
  • Classification of 39 Orders, 224 Families (+ 6 incertae sedis), 2197 Genera
  • Update summaries of new species and proposed splits, taxonomic revisions, and changes of names
  • Downloadable files of Version 2.2
    • 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 (1.4 Mb)
    • CSV version for database projects (715 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 and database projects  (4.65 Mb)
  • Comparison (v4.2) by Dave Sargeant and David Matson of the IOC list (Version 2.2) vs Clements (6e) - download Excel file (3.27 Mb).
  • Spelling guidelines for English bird names, including hyphenation of compound group names
  • Reviews and suggestions for improvement

Suggested Citation

Gill, F., Wright, M. & Donsker, D. (2009). IOC World Bird Names (version 2.2). Available at http://www.worldbirdnames.org/ [Accessed xxxxxxxx].