Eastern Phoebe

SCI Name:  Sayornis phoebe
Protonym:  [Muscicapa] Phoebe IndexOrn. 2 p.489
Taxonomy:  Passeriformes / Tyrannidae / Sayornis
Taxonomy Code:  easpho
Type Locality:  
Author:  Latham
Publish Year:  1790
IUCN Status:  Least Concern

DEFINITIONS

SAYORNIS
(Tyrannidae; Ϯ Black Phoebe S. nigricans) Thomas Say (1787-1834) US entomologist, first Secretary of Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia 1812, naturalist on Long's expeditions to the Rocky Mts. 1819-1820, 1823 (cf. specific name Muscicapa saya Bonaparte, 1825); Gr. ορνις ornis, ορνιθος ornithos  bird; "Les VOLUCRES MUSCIVORES nous offrent, parmi les Tyranniens si faciles à disposer en admirable parallélisme avec les Fluvicoliens réformés:   ...   Sayornis nigricans, Bp." (Bonaparte 1854); "Sayornis Bonaparte, 1854, Compt. Rend. Acad. Sci. Paris, p. 657. Type, by monotypy, Sayornis nigricans Bonaparte = Tyrannula nigricans Swainson." (Traylor in Peters 1979, VIII, 147).   
Synon. Aulanax, Empidias, Theromyias.

phoebe / phoebei
● Gr. myth. Phoebe, brightness of the moon, a name for the goddess Diana (syn. Chlorostilbon mellisugus, Metallura, syn. Myiarchus sagrae).
● Phoebe Leicester (1905-1989) niece of English naturalist and collector Robert "Robin" Kemp (Paul Scofield in litt.) (syn. Illadopsis fulvescens iboensis, syn. Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae).
● Onomatopoeic name; "Most distinctive feature, a spoken, not whistled, phoe-be, with accent sometimes on first, sometimes on last syllable." (Forbush & May 1939); ex "Dusky Flycatcher" of Pennant 1785, "Small or Common Phoeby Bird" of Ashton Blackburne in Pennant 1785, and "Phoebe Flycatcher" of Latham 1787 (Sayornis).