Crested Shrike-tit
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| Crested Shrike-tit | ||||||||||||||||
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| Falcunculus frontatus Latham, 1802 |
The Crested Shrike-tit, Falcunculus frontatus, is a bird endemic to Australia. Three subspecies inhabit open eucalypt forest and woodland in the southwest (F. f. leucogaster), north (F. f. whitei) and east (F. f. frontatus). These are sometimes considered full species. It has a parrot-like bill, used for distinctive bark-stripping behaviour, which gains it access to invertebrates.
Males are larger than females in wing length, weight, and bill-size (Noske 2003). Males have black throats, while females have olive green.
Recent work with nuclear gene sequencing suggests that the Shrike-tits and Wattled Ploughbill may require their own family, Falcunculidae (Dickinson 2003).
F. f. frontatus is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, F. f. whitei is considered Endangered, and F. f. leucogaster is listed as Near Threatened. Both the Northern Shrike-tit (F. f. whitei) and the Western Shrike-tit (F. f. leucogaster) suffer from habitat loss and fragmentation (CSIRO WfHC factsheet Falcunculus frontatus).
[edit] References
- BirdLife International (2004). Falcunculus frontatus. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 12 May 2006. Database entry includes justification for why this species is of least concern
- Del Hoyo, J.; Elliot, A. & Christie D. (editors). (2007). Handbook of the Birds of the World. Volume 12: Picathartes to Tits and Chickadees. Lynx Edicions. ISBN 9788496553422
- Dickinson, E. C. 2003. The Howard & Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World. 3rd Ed. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J.
- Schodde, R. and I. J. Mason. 1999. Directory of Australian Birds. Passerines: i-x, 1-851. CSIRO Publishing, Canberra.
[edit] External links
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