TODO: Subspecies swaps

Stella’s Lorikeet C. stellae is splitfrom West Papuan Lorikeet Charmosyna papou(Clements 2007:135)

Summary: The beautiful West Papuan Lorikeet is a newly recognized endemic bird for the Bird’s Head of western New Guinea, while Stella’s Lorikeet is widely distributed in the remainder of the island.

Details: Charmosyna stellae was described as a separate species long after C. papou was made known to science, but was for many years treated as a subspecies group (e.g., Hartert 1930, Peters 1937). Voisin and Voisin (1997) and Beehler and Pratt (2016) considered the several striking and consistent plumage differences between the isolated Vogelkop nominate C. papou and the other forms long considered conspecific to be indicative of species status. They are substantially genetically diverged (Joseph et al. 2020, Smith et al. 2023), hence the WGAC and Clements et al. (2023) now agree with HBW and BirdLife International (2022) and Gill et al. (2021, IOC v.11.2) in treating them as two species.

English names: The English name West Papuan Lorikeet better describes the distribution of Charmosyna papou and avoids the potential confusion engendered by use of the name Papuan Lorikeet, given the specific epithet and previous usage when both taxa were united. The widely familiar name Stella’s Lorikeet for the widespread C. stellae is unchanged; it has been in use since at least Iredale (1956), Forshaw (1973), Sibley and Monroe (1990), and Juniper and Parr (1998). These names also align with Pratt and Beehler (2015), Beehler and Pratt (2016), Gregory (2017), and Gill et al. (2021, IOC v.11.2).