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Italian Sparrow (1 Viewer)

Rick Wright Tucson

Rick Wright Tucson

Well-known member
Italian Sparrow is apparently the name given to stable hybrid populations of House x Spanish Sparrow. My query has to do with the range of those populations as given in Beaman and Madge and in Svensson et al.: how can Italian Sparrows be present in southern Switzerland if only one of the 'parent' species occurs there?
Confusedly,
 
I suppose the 'offspring species' spread to there whereas one of the 'parent species' remained behind. I saw Italian Sparrows in Southern Italy where the only other sparrow species I saw was Tree Sparrow.
 
The only Sparrows I saw in Crete last April were 'Italian' Sparrows. Male obvious, female similar to female House Sparrow which should rule out any Tree Sparrow influence (where the sexes are similar.)
 
Rick Wright said:
Italian Sparrow is apparently the name given to stable hybrid populations of House x Spanish Sparrow. My query has to do with the range of those populations as given in Beaman and Madge and in Svensson et al.: how can Italian Sparrows be present in southern Switzerland if only one of the 'parent' species occurs there?
Confusedly,
Click to expand...

The situation in the whole Mediterrenean region seems quite complicated between these two species.

In the east, Israel has both species breeding sympatrically, but the Spanish Sparrow is mostly migratory and returns after the House Sparrow has paired and begun to breed. This may be what keeps them from hybridising, but there is probably some habitat separation too.

When I was in Tripoli, N.Africa around 1965 all the town sparrows were Spanish. I did however find one published record of Italian Sparrow for there, and I found a corpse of a male "Italian" that had no streaked flank feathers whatsoever. Recent enquiries tell me that Tripoli town is now inhabited by House Sparrows, grey crowns and all. It seems that this replacement is spreading west to east across N. Africa following initial hybridisation by the first House Sparrows to disperse into an area.

The situation in Italy I don't know much about, but I would guess that dispersal of House Sparrows across the barrier formed by the Alps was always too slow to allow total displacement of any urban Spanish Sparrows, but frequent enough to have produced hybrids at some stage. The House Sparrow niche was then taken by these birds, which are better adapted, one must suppose, than the Spanish Sparrow to a life in an urban area. We know that in Spain the Spanish Sparrow was traditionally the bird of the countryside, and the House Sparrow of the towns.
 
As you said Rick, this hybrid population is stable. So nowadays Italian Sparrows are breeding with Italian Sparrows (and obviously the hardly mix with House Sparrows in southern Switzerland, as there is no increase or decrease in the populations). They must have evolved at a time or in a region, where both parental species were present. And as Nick said, they could spread afterwards or the parent species left the area because the Italian Sparrows were better adapted.

In Switzerland actually Italian Sparrows are treated as a subspecies of Spanish Sparrow, but I guess this could change with a better understandement of the relations. However I don't know if anyone is working on this subject.

Greetings from Switzerland
André
 
A recent paper published last year apparently provides evidence that the Italian Sparrow is not a hybrid population, but a valid taxon conspecific with the Spanish Sparrow, and that the House Sparrow is not part of the same species. Also, the scientific name of the species becomes Passer italiae, with hispaniolensis as a subspecies, since the name italiae is older and has priority over hispaniolensis. The abstract can be read here: http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/2006f/z01325p145f.pdf

Cheers,
Liam
 
As far as I understand the evidence is based on the distribution (which is specially in Northern Africa poorly understood) and the lack of reproductive isolation. I think only a DNA based analysis can really solve the problem.
 
wintibird said:
As far as I understand the evidence is based on the distribution (which is specially in Northern Africa poorly understood) and the lack of reproductive isolation. I think only a DNA based analysis can really solve the problem.
Click to expand...
A DNA analysis cannot resolve problems of this kind by itself. It can tell us which species the Italian Sparrow is closest to, but cannot determine the antecedents of this bird. A good start would be to cross-breed captive individuals from the various populations around the Med, and then DNA type the progeny.
 
See this abstract: http://www.eseb2009.it/cd/pdf/30-23_P.pdf

By the time the poster was presented, part of the data was in. If I remember correctly, mtDNA is pure House Sparrow-like. Nuclear DNA (suite of microsats) is 50-50 House-Spanish across the range. Therefore, the authors prefer the stable hybrid population hypothesis. Very exciting situation, I am looking forward to the paper.
 
Hi all,
This may appear out of the topic. What about Tunisian Sparrows, in Tunisia they say only House*Spanish hybrids exist and no “pure” House Sparrow.
 
Many years ago when I visited Tunesia I put virtually all of them down as Spanish Sparrow.

Now so many years later, I am not sure if I can fully discount hybrid ?

Niels
 
njlarsen said:
Many years ago when I visited Tunesia I put virtually all of them down as Spanish Sparrow.

Now so many years later, I am not sure if I can fully discount hybrid ?

Niels
Click to expand...

Hi,
I went there last December and discussed this with a very knowledgeable Tunisian ornithologist about this and he confirmed that there is virtually no House sparrow and nearly all are hybrids, I think I saw something about this in Bird of Western Palearctic too.
 
Tunisia

Acrocephalus said:
I went there last December and discussed this with a very knowledgeable Tunisian ornithologist about this and he confirmed that there is virtually no House sparrow and nearly all are hybrids, I think I saw something about this in Bird of Western Palearctic too.
Click to expand...
You're right, Mohamed. This from BWP:

  • "In Algeria, Tunisia, and north-west Libya, where breaking up of ecological or spatial separation between P. domesticus and P. hispaniolensis is apparently more recent, populations show extreme individual variation, from pure P. domesticus to pure P. hispaniolensis and all forms between. Isolated Saharan populations are more stabilized and usually nearer P. domesticus tingitanus (which is itself variable, probably due to introgression of P. hispaniolensis characters even in its pure form). Those of coastal Tunisia and of north-west Libya are nearer P. hispaniolensis, those of north-east Libya near P. domesticus (Meise 1936; Summers-Smith and Vernon 1972; Metzmacher 1986a)."
Richard
 
I was in Tunisia in 2001 i saw hundreds of House Sparrows in the north of the country and few Hybrid House/Spanish Sparrows.I also did some birdwatching in the south. Spanish Sparrows i saw hundreds everyday they were more common in the south.
 
Last edited:
rokermartin said:
I was in Tunisia in 2001 i saw hundreds of House Sparrows in the north of the country and few Hybrid House/Spanish Sparrows.I also did some birdwatching in the south. Spanish Sparrows i saw hundreds everyday they were more common in the south.
Click to expand...

That's funny. Went to Tunisia about five years ago and I seem to remember the same - resembled house sparrows in the north and more like pure Spanish in the south. Seems that contradicts BWP as quoted above.

Ken
 
KFC said:
That's funny. Went to Tunisia about five years ago and I seem to remember the same - resembled house sparrows in the north and more like pure Spanish in the south. Seems that contradicts BWP as quoted above.

Ken
Click to expand...
Yes i certainly saw pure House and Spanish Sparrows and a few hybrids.
 
Ben Wielstra said:
See this abstract: http://www.eseb2009.it/cd/pdf/30-23_P.pdf

By the time the poster was presented, part of the data was in. If I remember correctly, mtDNA is pure House Sparrow-like. Nuclear DNA (suite of microsats) is 50-50 House-Spanish across the range. Therefore, the authors prefer the stable hybrid population hypothesis. Very exciting situation, I am looking forward to the paper.
Click to expand...

That's rather odd, no? Surely there'd be some sort of introgradation across the range, being more similar to House in some areas and Spanish in others, rather than a stable 50:50 overall. Surely that would imply a period of mixing, then isolation to homogenise the population, then contact again?
I'd still fall on the side of Topfer's analysis where he suggests Spanish and Italian are conspecific and separate from House, but then I'm only an inorganic chemist.... ;)
 
KFC said:
That's funny. Went to Tunisia about five years ago and I seem to remember the same - resembled house sparrows in the north and more like pure Spanish in the south. Seems that contradicts BWP as quoted above.
Click to expand...

May depend on the dates, Spanish Sparrows are moving south towards the Sahara outside the breeding season.
 
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