Przewalski's Finch
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| Urocynchramus pylzowi Przewalski, 1876 |
The Przewalski's Finch, Urocynchramus pylzowi, is an unusual passerine bird from the mountains of central-west China. Its taxonomic affinities were unclear for a long time, giving rise to other common names, the Pink-tailed Bunting and the Przewalski's Rosefinch. Groth (2000) proposed that it should in fact be regarded neither as a finch nor a bunting, but as the only member of the family Urocynchramidae, [2] (something that had been originally proposed in the German ornithological literature as long ago as 1918 by Domaniewski, [3] and also by Wolters in 1979) and this change was adopted in the sixth edition of the Clements checklist [4]. The species is named for Nikolai Przhevalsky, the Russian explorer who described it.
The Przewalski's Finch is a small bird similar in appearance to the Long-tailed Rosefinch. The tail is long, and the sexes are sexually dimorphic, with the males having bright pink on the throat, breast and belly. Both sexes have brown streaked plumage on the back and wings. The bill is thinner than those of the rosefinches. The morphological feature which most distinguishes the species from the rosefinches is the outer primary; in finches and buntings this feather is vestigial but in the Przewalski's Finch it is two-thirds the length of the next primary.
The Przewalski's Finch lives at an elevation of between 3050m and 5000m, usually in pairs during the breeding season and in small flocks during the winter. Przhevalsky described the species' song as similar to that of buntings. The species has not been studied much in the wild, and little is known of its behaviour. It is not thought to be threatened by human activities and is listed as least concern by the IUCN.
[edit] References
- ^ Birdlife International ((2006) Species factsheet: Urocynchramus pylzowi. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 22/4/2007
- ^ Groth, J (2000). "Molecular evidence for the systematic position of Urocynchramus pylzowi." The Auk 117(3): 787-792.
- ^ Jour. Ornith., vol. 66, pp. 421-424
- ^ Clements, J. F. (2007) The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World ISBN 978-0801445019
[edit] External links
- Pink-tailed Bunting Don Roberson; Bird Families of the World
