When I became interested in birds at around the age of eleven their names were pretty much standardised after a few hundred years during which folk names with regional variations were supplanted and scientific names were agreed. Thus, the bird shown above was the blue tit (Parus caerulius). Beginning in the last quarter of the twentieth century that began to change as science applied its knowledge of DNA to individual birds. Today the blue tit is the Eurasian blue tit (Cyanistes caerulius) because (to quote Wikipedia) "in 2005, analysis of the
mtDNA cytochrome b sequences of the Paridae indicated that
Cyanistes was an early offshoot from the lineage of other tits, and more accurately regarded as a genus rather than a subgenus of
Parus."
photo © T. Boughen Camera: Nikon P900
