Wilson's Bird-of-Paradise

SCI Name:  Cicinnurus respublica
Protonym:  Lophorina respublica Compt.Rend. 30 p.131,note
Taxonomy:  Passeriformes / Paradisaeidae / Cicinnurus
Taxonomy Code:  wbopar1
Type Locality:  'New Guinea'' [= Waigeu].
Author:  Bonaparte
Publish Year:  1850
IUCN Status:  Near Threatened

DEFINITIONS

CICINNURUS
(Paradisaeidae; Ϯ King Bird-of-Paradise C. regia) Gr. κικιννος kikinnos  ringlet, curled lock of hair; ουρα oura  tail; "P[aradisæa]. cirrhis caudalibus filiformibus apice lunato-pennaceis" (Linnaeus 1758); "88. MANUCODE, Cicinnurus.  Paradisea, Lin. Gm. Lath.  Bec garni à la base de petites plumes dirigées en avant, grêle, convexe en dessus, un peu comprimé par les côtés, finement entaillé et fléchi vers le bout. — Plumes hypochondriales, larges, longées, tronquées.   Esp. Manucode, Buff.  ....  Cicinnurus  [κικιννος, cincinnus,  ουρα, cauda]." (Vieillot 1816); "Cicinnurus Vieillot, 1816, Analyse, p. 35. Type, by monotypy, "Manucode, Buff." = Paradisaea regia Linnaeus." (Mayr in Peters, 1962, XV, p. 197). Cracraft 1992, tentatively differentiated four species in Cicinnurus sens. str.
Var. Circinurus, Cicinurus, Cincinnurus.
Synon. Cricocercus, Diphyllodes, Manucodiata, Manucodus, Schlegelia.

respublica
L. respublica  republic, commonwealth  < res, rei  matter, affair; publicus  public  < populus  people, nation.  The practice of naming new birds of paradise and other beautiful species after kings and queens was anathema to the fiercely republican sentiments of Prince Bonaparte.  In naming Wilson’s Bird of Paradise he voiced a lack of respect for all the rulers of the world but, at the same time, expressed his disenchantment with the French Republic which he considered had been turned into a hell by the machinations and arrogance of so-called republicans.  By coining this name (1850) he ensured that, since there could not be a paradisean republic, there should at least be a republican paradise bird.  His hasty and succinct diagnosis (“Chlamyde ex plumis elongatis nuchae rubra”), however, concealed the ‘hijacking’ of the specimen purchased in Paris by Edward Wilson and destined to be donated to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, U.S.A., and was published barely six months before John Cassin’s Paradisea wilsonii, based on the same skin.  The Prince’s enthusiasm and precipitate action, those of a man driven, were not appreciated by American authors, who refused to use respublica for many years thereafter (Cicinnurus).