Small Whitethroat
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| Small Whitethroat | ||||||||||||||
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| Sylvia minula Hume, 1873 |
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Sylvia curruca minula |
The Small Whitethroat, Sylvia minula, is a typical warbler. Until recently, it was considered conspecific with the Lesser Whitethroat; today these are seen as members of a superspecies. The present species together with Hume's Whitethroat seems to form an Asian lineage in the superspecies.(Helbig 2001, Jønsson & Fjeldså 2006)
This is the aridland representative of the superspecies, occurring from dry lowlands of Xinjiang westwards to Turkmenistan and possibly into Iran. Following Gloger's Rule, it is paler and more sandy in coloration and lacks the well-marked dark head sides of the Lesser Whitethroat, though the white throat is still distinctive. It is also smaller (see Bergmann's Rule) and has a conspicuously smaller bill, adapted to the different food available in its habitat.
Three subspecies are usually recognized:
- Sylvia minula munila - includes chuancheica
- Sylvia minula margelanica
- Sylvia minula jaxartica
The latter two might constitute a separate species, Margelanic Whitethroat.
In addition, the presumed Lesser Whitethroat subspecies halimodendri and telengitica might actually belong to the Small Whitethroat, or alternatively might represent hybrid intergrades between, respectively, S. m. jaxartica and S. m. margelanica and the Lesser Whitethroat (Snow et al. 1998).
[edit] References
- BirdLife International (2004). Sylvia minula. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 26 April 2007. Database entry includes justification for why this species is of least concern
- Helbig, A. J. (2001): Phylogeny and biogeography of the genus Sylvia. In: Shirihai, Hadoram: Sylvia warblers: 24-25[verification needed]. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J.. ISBN 0691088330
- Jønsson, Knud A. & Fjeldså, Jon (2006): A phylogenetic supertree of oscine passerine birds (Aves: Passeri). Zool. Scripta 35(2): 149–186. doi::10.1111/j.1463-6409.2006.00221.x (HTML abstract)
- Snow, David W.; Perrins, Christopher M.; Doherty, Paul & Cramp, Stanley (1998): The complete birds of the western Palaearctic on CD-ROM. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0192685791
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