The ''Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World'' is a book by Richard Howard and Alick Moore which presents a list of the bird species of the world. It was the first single-volume world bird list to include subspecies names, and until the publication of the 5th edition of
James Clements'
''Checklist of Birds of the World'' was the only one to do so.
It is currently in its fourth edition (2013), and is published by
Aves Press in the UK.
First edition
The first edition was published in 1980.
Second edition
The second edition was published in 1991, and a reprint was issued in 1994, and included an appendix with a further 282 changes.
The jacket paintings are by
Martin Woodcock.
Third edition
The third edition was published in 2003. It was edited by
Edward C. Dickinson, with the assistance of four other regional compilers: David Pearson (covering
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
),
James Van Remsen, Jr. (
The Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.
Along with th ...
), Kees Roselaar (the
Palearctic region) and
Richard Schodde
Richard Schodde, OAM (born 23 September 1936) is an Australian botanist and ornithologist.
Schodde studied at the University of Adelaide, where he received a BSc (Hons) in 1960 and a PhD in 1970. During the 1960s he was a botanist with the CSI ...
(
Australasia
Australasia is a region that comprises Australia, New Zealand and some neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term is used in a number of different contexts, including geopolitically, physiogeographically, philologically, and ecologi ...
); Dickinson himself acted as the regional consultant for Asia.
This edition starts with a foreword from Richard Howard (Alick Moore having died prior to this edition being prepared). A seven-page introduction is followed by a six-page chapter entitled "Avian Higher-level Phylogenetics and the Howard and Moore Checklist of Birds" by
Joel Cracraft, F. Keith Barker and Alice Cibois, after which is a summary of the family structure used in this edition, in tabular form, giving numbers of genera and species. The bulk of the book, from pages 31 to 826 is the systematic list. A references list from pages 832 to 883 lists 3000 references used in the compilation of the checklist.
Fourth edition
The fourth edition was published in two volumes in 2013 and 2014. The first volume (covering the non-passerines) was edited by
Edward C. Dickinson and
James Van Remsen, Jr. while the second volume (
passerines
A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by th ...
) was edited by
Edward C. Dickinson and
Les Christidis
Leslie Christidis (born 30 May 1959), also simply known as Les Christidis, is an Australian ornithologist. His main research field is the evolution and systematics of birds. He has been director of Southern Cross University National Marine Scienc ...
.
The database has been made available for download in 2018
References
{{Reflist
Ornithological checklists