Black-backed Bittern

[martinf]

can anyone clarify for me the taxonomy of 'Little Bitterns' and whether Black-backed (Ixobrychus novaezelandiae ) occurs in OZ? or whether this was just a NZ form that appears to be extinct.
Cheers
Martin

[AlexC]

Just reading straight out of my Clements excel file...

Little Bittern; Ixobrychus minutus
I. m. minutus: Central and s Europe to Siberia; North Africa
I. m. payesii: Africa south of the Sahara
I. m. podiceps: Madagascar

Black-backed Bittern; Ixobrychus novaezelandiae
I. n. dubius: SW and e Australia and New Guinea
I. n. novaezelandiae: Formerly South I. (New Zealand). Probably extinct

[martinf]

Yep, I too have that but I've also seen it down as extinct having only been found in NZ!!
On another note where did you get the Clements XL file from?!?!?

[Xenospiza]

I think Howard and Moore treat Black-backed as a subspecies of minutus. Apparently, novaezelandiae was a much larger bird.
I cannot comment who is right...

[cuckooroller]

Race novaezelandiae - well, here it is kind of smorgasbord - you can take your pick. The HM treats dubius with I. minutus, and separates I. novaezelandiae as a distinct species (v. Marchant, S. & P.J. Higgens, HANZAB, Vol. 1A). The Clements treats it as Alex has stated above. The HBW treats both dubius, and novaezelandiae as races of minutus, though noting that novaezelandiae has been treated as a separate species by some. But, in an allusory reference apparently to novaezelandiae HBW, Vol. 1, P. 294 offers "birds very similar to this extinct New Zealand form, have recently been found in Australia". To note that Vol. 1 of HBW was published in 1992.

[Tom Tarrant]

Interesting stuff, the 'Little' Bittern in Australia looks quite different (to me) to the Eurasian one, but there seems to be quite some opposition in this country to 'split' it (although this could be more to do with 'entrenched attitudes'.)

Would love to hear more views on the subject.

Tom

Attached are 5 images of "Black-backed" Bittern