Black-browed bushtit
Template:Short description Template:Speciesbox
The black-browed bushtit or black-browed tit (Aegithalos bonvaloti) is a species of bird in the family Aegithalidae. It is found in mid-southern China and sporadically in Myanmar. Its natural habitats are boreal forests and temperate forests. It was formerly considered to be conspecific with the rufous-fronted tit (A. iouschistos) of the central and eastern Himalayas but is now often regarded as a separate species. Sometimes the subspecies A. b. sharpei (Burmese tit) of western Burma is also treated as a species.
Taxonomy
The black-browed bushtit was formally described and illustrated in 1892 by the French zoologist Émile Oustalet based on a specimen collected by the French explorer, Gabriel Bonvalot, and his companions near Kangding in the province of Sichuan of southwest China. Oustalet coined the binomial name Acredula bonvaloti.[1][2] The black-browed bushtit is now one of nine species placed in the genus Aegithalos that was introduced in 1804 by the French naturalist Johann Hermann.[3] The genus name was a term used by Aristotle for three European tits: the long-tailed tit, the great tit, and the Eurasian blue tit.[4] The specific epithet bonvaloti was chosen to honour the collector.[5] This species was formerly considered as conspecific with the rufous-fronted bushtit (Aegithalos iouschistos).[2]
Three subspecies are recognised:[3]
- A. b. bonvaloti (Oustalet, 1892) – southwest, central south China, northeast Myanmar
- A. b. obscuratus (Mayr, 1940) – central China
- A. b. sharpei (Rippon, 1904) – southwest Myanmar (Burmese bushtit)
The subspecies A. b. sharpei has sometimes been treated as a separate species, the Burmese bushtit.[3]
Description
It is a small, long-tailed bird, Script error: No such module "convert". long. It has grey upperparts, rufous breast and flanks and a white belly. The head is buff with a broad black mask, white forehead and a white bib, speckled black in the centre. The subspecies A. b. sharpei has white rather than buff on the head, a dark breastband and a buff belly.
References
<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />
Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- MacKinnon, John & Karen Phillipps (2000) A Field Guide to the Birds of China, Oxford University Press, Oxford
- Robson, Craig (2002) A Field Guide to the Birds of South-East Asia, New Holland Publishers (UK) Ltd., London