Spelaeornis wren-babblers (1 Viewer)

[Mike Earp]

What is the identity of the Spelaeornis wren-babbler that occurs on the slopes of Mugaphi Peak in south-eastern Arunachal Pradesh? (Praveen J, Dipu Karuthedathu, Subramanian Sankar, Hemraj Duraiswami, Yolisa Yobin & Rahul Baruah 7 December 2022, Indian Birds 18 (4): 107–113)

Abstract
We document a Spelaeornis species from the slopes of Mugaphi Peak in eastern Arunachal, India, with photographs and sonograms. We compared and analysed the birds in our photographs with museum specimens of the Grey-bellied Wren-Babbler S. reptatus and the Naga Wren-Babbler S. chocolatinus and found that most of the morphological features of the photographed birds are similar to Grey-bellied Wren-Babbler, though there are some differences. However, almost all vocalisations of those birds are dissimilar to those of the Grey-bellied Wren-Babbler, being closer to those of the Naga Wren-Babbler. We argue that this is probably an undescribed taxon that is intermediate between both known forms of Spelaeornis and recommend further molecular sampling to elucidate their relationships.