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Madanga & São Tomé Shorttail (1 Viewer)

Richard Klim

Richard Klim

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Richard Klim said:
Forthcoming...
Alström, Jönsson, Fjeldså, Ödeen, Ericson & Irestedt (in press). Dramatic niche shifts and morphological change in two insular bird species. R Soc open sci.

Any guesses...? ;)
Click to expand...
Murray Lord said:
Sao Tome Short-tail?
Click to expand...
Good guess, Murray. :t:

Alström, Jønsson, Fjeldså, Ödeen, Ericson & Irestedt 2015. Dramatic niche shifts and morphological change in two insular bird species. R Soc open sci 2: 140364. [article]
(pdf doesn't seem to be online yet.)
A comprehensive taxonomic revision of Motacillidae is required. As a first step, Madanga should be synonymized with Anthus (type species: A. pratensis) and Amaurocichla with Motacilla.
Click to expand...
HBW Alive...
 
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Richard Klim said:
Good guess, Murray. :t:

Alström, Jønsson, Fjeldså, Ödeen, Ericson & Irestedt 2015. Dramatic niche shifts and morphological change in two insular bird species. R Soc open sci 2: 140364. [article]

(pdf doesn't seem to be online yet.)
Click to expand...

How did the pipits lose their stripes? Amazing stuff. I've not seen either of them so don't know whether the relationships would be discernible to the field observer. Does anyone know if these relationships had been suggested previously, based solely on field observations?

cheers, alan
 
lewis20126 said:
Does anyone know if these relationships had been suggested previously, based solely on field observations?
Click to expand...
I don't think there was any molecular data published for Madanga before today.
In 2008, Martim Melo gave a talk at an ABC meeting [summarized here], where he implied that Amaurocichla was a pipit. In Johansson et al. 2008 [pdf], this species clustered with Motacilla alba, the only Motacillidae in this data set. And see my post and tree [here].

Although I've not seen them either, I find the position of Madanga still much more amazing than that of Amaurocichla.
 
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Alan, I certainly was stunned when I heard the news about the Madanga from Per, hard to believe but there is no doubting the data presented. It was obviously never a dark-eye, but a pipit, very surprising.
Perhaps over time when more observations are made (as the logging roads creep on up those mountains - nearly there now) it will become more obvious. I remember being stunned about Ground Tit being a paridae until I watched and studied them again and again, and you could see the relationship quite clearly in it's feeding and behaviour.

James
 
That makes my dip of the Madanga even worse. Luckily going back to Buru (someday before the last tree is cut) is on my wish list...
 
Fantastic! But what about voice, any one knows?

Also interesting, but not close to as flabbergasting, is that Anthus is paraphyletic with respect to Macronyx. Tawny, Long-billed and Richard's Pipits and the like are out!
 
There is an "Anthus ruficollis" available from Lesson 1831 (= Anthus cervinus (Pallas)).
It has probably not been used as valid after 1899 (*) but, theoretically, an act of reversal of precedence should be published before ruficollis Rothschild & Hartert, 1923 can be used in Anthus.

(* I do find recent uses of "Anthus ruficollis" on the Web, including in documents that look like they are published in the sense of the Code (eg: [this]), but these apply to Paddyfield Pipit, hence represent an incorrect subsequent spelling of Anthus rufulus Vieillot [ICZN 33.2.1 not fulfilled ;)], and not a use of Anthus ruficollis Lesson. I would assume that this does not count.)
 
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