Crested shriketit
| Crested shriketit | |
|---|---|
| File:Falcunculus frontatus -Royal Botanic Gardens, Cranbourne, Australia-8.jpg | |
| Male | |
| File:Crested Shrike-Tit kobble09.JPG | |
| Female | |
| Scientific classification | |
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| Genus: |
Falcunculus
Vieillot, 1816
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| Species: |
F. frontatus
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| Binomial name | |
| Falcunculus frontatus Latham, 1802
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The crested shriketit (Falcunculus frontatus) is a bird endemic to Australia where it inhabits open eucalypt forest and woodland.
Contents
Taxonomy and distribution
Recent work with nuclear gene sequencing suggests that the crested shriketits and the wattled ploughbill may require their own family, Falcunculidae (Dickinson 2003). There are three subspecies (sometimes considered full species) with disjunct ranges:[2][3]
- Western crested shriketit (F. f. leucogaster) - sparsely distributed in south-western Western Australia
- Northern crested shriketit (F. f. whitei) - rare, with isolated records in the Kimberley region of north-western Australia and the Top End of the Northern Territory
- Eastern crested shriketit (F. f. frontatus) - the stronghold of the species in south-eastern Australia from the Lower South-East of South Australia, coastally and in the Murray-Darling Basin to south-eastern Queensland, with some scattered occurrences further north and west in Queensland
Description
Males are larger than females in wing length, weight, and bill-size.[4] Males have black throats, while females have olive green.
Behaviour
It feeds mainly on insects, spiders and, sometimes, particularly during the breeding season, young birds. Thistles are also taken. It has a parrot-like bill, used for distinctive bark-stripping behaviour, which gains it access to invertebrates.
Status and conservation
The eastern crested shriketit is evaluated as being of least concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the northern crested shriketit is considered endangered, and the western crested shriketit is listed as near threatened.[1] Both the northern and western crested shriketits suffer from habitat loss and fragmentation.[5]
References
Notes
Sources
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- 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.
External links
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