In 1760 the French zoologist
Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the purple-throated sunbird in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in the Philippines. He used the French name Le grimpereau pourpré des Philippines and the Latin Certhia Philippensis Purpurea.[2] Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the
binomial system and are not recognised by the
International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.[3] When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist
Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the
twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson.[3] One of these was the purple-throated sunbird. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the
binomial nameCerthia sperata and cited Brisson's work.[4] Linnaeus specified the
type location as the Philippines but this was subsequently restricted to
Manila.[5] The
specific namesperata is Latin for "bride" or "betrothed".[6] The species is now placed in the genus Leptocoma was introduced by the German ornithologist
Jean Cabanis in 1850.[7]
^
abAllen, J.A. (1910). "Collation of Brisson's genera of birds with those of Linnaeus". Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. 28: 317–335.
hdl:
2246/678.
^Paynter, Raymond A. Jr, ed. (1986).
Check-list of Birds of the World. Vol. 12. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology. p. 237.
^Jobling, J.A. (2018). del Hoyo, J.; Elliott, A.; Sargatal, J.; Christie, D.A.; de Juana, E. (eds.).
"Key to Scientific Names in Ornithology". Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions. Retrieved 9 May 2018.
Rasmussen, P.C., and J.C. Anderton. 2005. Birds of South Asia. The Ripley guide. Volume 2: attributes and status. Smithsonian Institution and Lynx Edicions, Washington D.C. and Barcelona.