- Petroica pusilla
Identification
The male is black above with a scarlet breast and whitish belly. The head is black with a large white patch on the forecrown and the black extends to cover the throat and upper breast. The female has a paler red on the breast and brownish upperparts.
Distribution
Found in the South Pacific from Samoa over Vanuatu, Fiji and the Solomon Islands to Norfolk Island.
Taxonomy
In 1999, Schodde & Mason in their Directory of Australian Birds split the Scarlet Robin into Pacific Robin P. multicolor distributed in various Pacific islands and Scarlet Robin P. boodang with 3 sub-species distributed in Tasmania, south-eastern Australia and south-western Australia. When the two are considered conspecific, the enlarged species is called the Scarlet Robin (P. multicolor).
More recently, Pacific Robin has been further split into Norfolk Robin (Petroica multicolor, monotypic) and Pacific Robin (Petroica pusilla).
Subspecies
Fourteen subspecies are recognized[1].
- P. p. septentrionalis - Bougainville (Solomon Islands)
- P. p. kulambangrae - Solomon Islands (Kolombangara)
- P. p. dennisi - Guadalcanal (Solomon Islands)
- P. p. polymorpha - Makira (Solomon Islands)
- P. p. soror - Vanua Lava (Banks Group)
- P. p. ambrynensis - Vanuatu and Banks Group
- P. p. feminina - Vanuatu (Efate and Mai)
- P. p. cognata - Vanuatu (Erromanga I.)
- P. p. tannensis - Vanuatu (Tanna)
- P. p. similis - Vanuatu (Aneityum)
- P. p. kleinschmidti - Fiji (Viti Levu and Vanua Levu)
- P. p. taveunensis - Taveuni (Fiji)
- P. p. becki - Kadavu (Fiji)
- P. p. pusilla - Western Samoa (Upolu and Savai'i)
Habitat
Forest and woodland.
Behaviour
References
- Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2019. The eBird/Clements Checklist of Birds of the World: v2019. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
Recommended Citation
- BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Pacific Robin. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 27 April 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Pacific_Robin
External Links
GSearch checked for 2020 platform.1
