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Birds New Zealand has updated its checklist to give much greater prominence to Māori bird names.
Checklist committee convenor Colin Miskelly says the main criticism of the popular New Zealand Birds Online website, which was base on the previous 2010 edition of the checklist, was the limited number of Māori names.
The committee now has a database of 2,515 Māori and Moriori bird names.
Dr Miskelly says birds have multiple Māori names, as different names may have been given to different life stages, as well as different iwi having their own names for the same species.
The Māori bird names presented in the main part of the checklist reflect the Māori bird names that have been used most often in the scientific literature.
For the first time the checklist is digital-only, published as both web pages and a pdf.
Full Checklist (webpages) – birdsnz.org.nz/society-publications/checklist/
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