Welcome to the home of Aves Press

Aves Press was created to publish the 4th edition of The Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World (2013, 2014) and its companion work Priority! The dating of scientific names in ornithology (2011). The focus of Aves Press is now on the publication and distribution of two periodicals targeting issues in nomenclature and taxonomy in zoology, especially of birds, Zoological Bibliography and Avian Systematics. Digital editions of both volumes of The Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World (2013-2014) and Priority! The dating of scientific names in ornithology (2011), together with the contents of their accompanying CDs are made available on this website as a continuing resource for ornithologists.

A short history of the The Howard and Moore Checklist of Birds of the World

The first edition of the The Howard and Moore Checklist of Birds of the World, edited by Richard Howard and Alec Moore, was published by Oxford University Press in 1980, and revised in 1984. At just over 700 pages, the world’s known avifauna was then assessed at about 8500 species. This volume was the first compact world avian checklist to include subspecies. At a global scale, lists of subspecies were only previously available in the volumes of the Peters Checklist (which was then still incomplete). The second edition, published by Academic Press in 1991 (reprinted in 1994), maintained the same style and despite just 34 new species being described in the interval the species count rose to just over 9200 due to changes in the philosophy and application of species limits.

The third edition, edited by Edward Dickinson and published by Christopher Helm and Princeton University Press in 2003, brought significant change. The sequence of families and species changed reflecting the findings from studies of avian DNA, as illuminated by a chapter written by Joel Cracraft and colleagues, and drew upon the expertise of regional consultants. Driven mainly by studies using DNA, the number of recognised species rose to 9723, many being elevated from subspecies. In addition, this edition provided more detailed range statements (although only promised for the Americas), thousands of footnotes explaining corrections and almost 3000 references in its 1039 pages.

The fourth edition of the The Howard and Moore Checklist of Birds of the World was published in two volumes. The non-Passerine volume (4072 species), edited by Dickinson and Remsen, was published by Aves Press in 2013; its companion, the Passerine volume (6063 species), edited by Dickinson and Christidis, in 2014. Both had introductory chapters by Cracraft which reviewed the seismic changes in our understanding of avian relationships that studies of DNA were revealing. American range statements were strengthened and the need for explanation of change led to over 8000 footnotes and over 5000 references (the latter, to save on printed pages, placed on accompanying CDs along with maps, a gazetteer and some of the appendices).

All these volumes are now out of print.

The title The Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World is currently owned by The Trust for Avian Systematics. Work continues on updating a digital version of the checklist in the light of new discoveries mostly resulting from advances in molecular phylogenetics and the strict application of the ICZN rules of zoological nomenclature. The nature of the future publication of this is a work in progress.