Sylvia splits

[Larry Wheatland]

Just wondering if anyone's got any views on the splitting (just by Sibley and Munroe perhaps ?) of Desert Warbler (S. nana) and Orphean Warbler (S. hortensis) each into two species. Anyone reckon S. deserti and/or S. crassirostris are worthy of specific status ? Any recent reasoning for or against ?....er..(cough)...anyone tickin'em ?

[Jane Turner]

All the UK desert warblers were one race (Eastern birds.). I have seen three in the UK and twitched none - they follow me about

Not sure any of the very few Orpheans were ever pinned down to race.

[bitterntwisted]

Is it just me or does Sylvia Splits sound like an actress specialising in a particular film genre? Sorry, Larry!

[cuckooroller]

Hi Larry,
Sylvia nana senso largo has also been split by the Clements list. The Howard & Moore and HBW are waiting on this one for a final definition of the genetic data - they will be split eventually I am sure by all major authorities. For Sylvia hortensis senso largo (i.e. pre-split) the same argument as above obtains with even more force. The only reason the Howard & Moore and HBW did not split them is that at the time the publications went to press the final justification for splitting had not been finalised.

Possibly a more interesting aspect is who will be the first to have enough "cojones" to finally shift Sylvia out of Sylviidae!

[Xenospiza]

Shihirai's book should contain all the details – all these splits are based on work described there I gather. Also Balearic and Marmora's Warbler were split.
If the Orphean Warblers in the UK haven't been ID'ed carefully, you'll be sorry one day... (hollow laugh!)

Just to clarify Steve's comment: Sylvia is related to the Timalia's (and White-eyes), and it has been proposed to rename this new *huge* family "Timaliidae" and not (as would be expected) Sylviidae!

Moreover, Leaf Warblers, Reed Warblers, Cettia's, Grasshopper Warblers are all in possible different new families (and Zitting Cisticola and Kinglets surely are!)

[Hotspur]

So would that leave Hippolais and Acrocephalus as the only warblers left standing?

[Larry Wheatland]

Thanks for all your replies, (serious and otherwise !). I'll probably bore you periodically with quite a few of these type of questions, picking a couple of birds at a time. I must admit, from my limited experience, the Desert split doesn't surprise me at all but the Orphean does a little, though I haven't heard crassirostris singing and might think differently if I had.

As for the family treatment mentioned by Steve and Xeno....not sure I'm quite ready to stomach calling out ..."Well bless me, Western Orphean Babbler " yet, but I suppose we'd better start getting used to it !

[Xenospiza]

So would that leave Hippolais and Acrocephalus as the only warblers left standing?
Well... yes... check this overview and related pages: http://montereybay.com/creagrus/sylvid-intro.html

[bitterntwisted]

Well... yes... check this overview and related pages: http://montereybay.com/creagrus/sylvid-intro.html

Good Lord! We need to tear up all the books and start again. This is MAJOR! Just how certain is any of this? There are numerous uses of "well-supported" and "not so well-supported". What does well-supported mean? How many studies? How many genetic markers? How many specimens? MT-DNA only? etc.

[Xenospiza]

All people working on "warblers" find that the present treatment is wrong, based on nuclear and mt-DNA (I don't have all the relevant articles).
Some genera are split over various branches (e.g. Orthotomus), so they need to do truly exhaustive work before a new framework can be made... (no use in replacing something wrong with something else that's wrong – that's happening too often!)