Opening the pages of Ibis to find that one of the near-endemic species of most concern in your country has been subsumed into another commoner species (Cooper et al. 2001) is a little disconcerting. Cooper et al.'s study of the mitochondrial oxidase gene concludes that the divergence of 1.06-1.21% between Namibia's Violet Woodhoopoe Phoeniculus damarensis and the commoner Green Woodhoopoe Phoeniculus purpureus is too small to consider them separate species and that the two should be synonymized.