Cuckoo

[Richprins]

Where was this pic, Klippies?

[Klipspringer]

Where was this pic, Klippies?

Caprivi! The only place in Southern Africa, where they are common.

[Richprins]

[Peter Betts]

They are common in the Garden Route ..Knysna etc

[Klipspringer]

Klaas's cuckoo is native to the wooded regions of sub-Saharan Africa. French naturalist François Le Vaillant named the bird after his Khoikhoi guide, whom he called Klaas. In addition to acting as a guide, Klaas also collected specimens (including one of this cuckoo) for Le Vaillant.
Klaas's cuckoo is the earliest example of a species being named after an Indigenous person that evolutionary ecologist Dr. Stephen B. Heard has been able to trace.

https://blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/20 ... story.html?

In 1780, French naturalist François Le Vaillant traveled to the Cape of Good Hope and subsequently spent several years studying the region’s biodiversity. During his three journeys—the first around Cape Town and Saldanha Bay (April to August 1781), the second eastwards from the Cape (December 1781 to May 1783), and the third to the Orange River and into Great Namaqualand (June 1783 to c. May 1784)—Le Vaillant amassed a collection of thousands of specimens. Upon returning to Europe, he published accounts of his travels within Voyage dans l’intérieur de l’Afrique (1790, 2 vols.) and Second voyage dans l’intérieur de l’Afrique (1796, 3 vols.)—both of which were best sellers and were translated into several languages.

Within these narratives, Le Vaillant writes repeatedly of his Khoikhoi guide, whom he called Klaas (but whose name in Klaas’s own Khoe language seems to be unrecorded). Le Vaillant’s respect and affection for Klaas is evident. In the first volume of his Voyage dans l’intérieur de l’Afrique, Le Vaillant writes:

“…le bon Klaas fut déclaré mon égal, mon frère, le confident de tous mes plaisirs, de mes disgrâces, de toutes mes pensées ; il a plus d’une fois calmé mes ennuis, & ranimé mon courage abattu.”
[“…the good Klaas is declared my equal, my brother, the confidant of all my pleasures, of my disgraces, of all my thoughts; he has more than once calmed my troubles, & revived my shattered courage.”]

Klaas, of whom Le Vaillant wrote “by long practice [he] had become a naturalist”, also collected specimens for the French naturalist, which Le Vaillant later described within publications such as Histoire naturelle des oiseaux d’Afrique (1796–1808, 6 vols.). One such specimen was that of Klaas’s cuckoo, a species native to the wooded regions of sub-Saharan Africa. According to Le Vaillant, Klaas collected the specimen “près de la rivière Platte” (“near the Platte river”). It was the only individual of this species that the company encountered during their expedition.

When Le Vaillant published his account of the species within Histoire naturelle des oiseaux d’Afrique (v. 5, 1806), he named it “Le Coucou de Klaas” in honor of “mon ami Klaas”, writing:

“Puissent les naturalistes conserver à l’espèce que je vais décrire, le nom que je lui donne, et consacre ainsi les services que tu m’as rendus: ils me prouveront par là que mes travaux ont eu quelque prix à leurs yeux.”
[“May naturalists preserve for the species I am going to describe, the name I give it, and thus consecrate the services you have rendered me: they will prove to me by this that my work has had some value in their eyes.”]

While Le Vaillant, who opposed the Linnaean classification system, provided only French names to the species he described, future naturalists did fortunately honor Le Vaillant’s commemoration of Klaas. Some ten years after Le Vaillant’s description was published, English zoologist James Francis Stephens made a formal redescription of the species, designating it Cuculus klaas (now Chrysococcyx klaas).

Eponymous scientific naming, or the practice of naming a species after an individual, is the subject of Dr. Stephen B. Heard’s book, Charles Darwin’s Barnacle and David Bowie’s Spider (2020). Klaas’s cuckoo is the earliest example of a species being named after an Indigenous person that Heard has been able to trace. While researching the name for his book, Heard relied on the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) to access Le Vaillant’s description of Klaas’s cuckoo and uncover more about the story behind the name.

[Richprins]

Interesting!

[Lisbeth]

Imagine what it must have been like to travel in those days

I'll try to dig up one of those books We know the names of a lot of naturalists, but not their history.

Klippie!