Hypothymis (1 Viewer)

IOC Update Diary
Sept 10 Accept Pale-blue Monarch (Hypothymis puella)

Peter Kovalik said:

IOC Update Diary
Sept 10 Accept Pale-blue Monarch (Hypothymis puella)

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Peter, Boyd affirms that Fabre sampled only three taxa of the complex. We are currently reviewing the taxonomy for the Philippines, and the race association to this split seems to be long on conjecture. If followed we are going to wind up with two species of Hypothymis azurea sensu lato in the Philippines. If I look at the rationale of plucking out, for example, race catarmanensis from the mix, it just does not seem to make much zoogeographic sense.

cuckooroller said:

...it just does not seem to make much zoogeographic sense.

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Monroe & Sibley 1993 restricts Hypothymis (azurea) puella to Sulawesi, presumably treating it as monotypic.

Inskipp et al 1996 (Annotated Checklist of the Birds of the Oriental Region):

Stresemann (1939-1941) considered puella (including blasii) from Sulawesi and the Sula Islands to be a separate species from azurea due to the lack of a black nuchal patch. However, other disjunct populations of this complex, occurring on Babi and Lasia (West Sumatran Islands), Maratua Island (Kalimantan) and Camiguin South (Philippines) also lack the black nuchal patch. It seems likely that these taxa evolved independently and that grouping these forms as a separate species is inappropriate (Rand 1970) meaning that the loss of the black nuchal patch is not a useful character for deciding specific limits in this group.

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King 1997 (Checklist of the Birds of Eurasia) restricts H puella to Wallacea (absent from the Philippines and Greater Sundas), suggesting the exclusion of aeria, blasii and catarmanensis.

Moeliker 2006 (HBW 11):

SE races puella, aeria, blasii and catarmanensis form well-marked "puella group", sometimes treated as a distinct species.

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Fabre et al 2012 only mentions Sulawesi/Wallacea wrt H puella (and only sampled nominate puella):

... closely related to H. puella from Sulawesi and to the widespread Asian/Philippine complex H. azurea ...
... another well-supported clade that consists of Hypothymis azurea and the Wallacean Hypothymis puella. ...

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Thanks much Richard. It is obvious that race association of puella sensu stricto is not quite ready for prime time. I have no problem with the split itself, it is understanding the zoogeography that is irksome, and more information is needed. For the moment, we will likely leave catarmanensis with azurea, even though this may not be correct. The closest that I might come to understanding it is to hypothesize that puella may have first colonized the Philippines, then range excluded by a later colonization by azurea leaving a relictual pocket of puella-related birds only on Camiguin Sur. Incidentally, it is interesting that Camiguin Sur is also home to the sometimes-species (not by me however) Loriculus camiguinensis, as well as the rather distinctive race catarmanensis of Ixos everetti.

If you like zoogeographical conundrums, well, here is one that is making me go absolutely batty. After the split of Van Hasselt's Sunbird, the Philippines appeared to have gained an endemic, Leptocoma sperata. The bird ranging in eastern Kalimantan, including the islands off the coast thereof is Leptocoma b. brasiliana, except for, and this is the conundrum, a tiny little island mixed among all those little islands off the coast of Kalimantan by the name of Maratua! Supposedly, and I do not believe it, there ranges Leptocoma sperata trochilus! Clive Mann is trying to help me out with this by having somebody shoot the skin shots so that we can look at them.

Purple-throated Sunbird

cuckooroller said:

If you like zoogeographical conundrums, well, here is one that is making me go absolutely batty. After the split of Van Hasselt's Sunbird, the Philippines appeared to have gained an endemic, Leptocoma sperata. The bird ranging in eastern Kalimantan, including the islands off the coast thereof is Leptocoma b. brasiliana, except for, and this is the conundrum, a tiny little island mixed among all those little islands off the coast of Kalimantan by the name of Maratua! Supposedly, and I do not believe it, there ranges Leptocoma sperata trochilus! Clive Mann is trying to help me out with this by having somebody shoot the skin shots so that we can look at them.

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Steve, that does seem rather surprising. However, checking the distribution map in Cheke & Mann 2001 (Sunbirds), Maratua is actually slightly further (~350km) from the nearest mapped population of L sperata brasiliana in Kalimantan than from the nearest population of L sperata sensu stricto (L s juliae on Sibutu, Sulu Archipelago, ~300km distant). But the later map in Cheke & Mann 2008 (HBW 13) depicts a population of brasiliana on the Sambaliung Peninsula, only ~100km from Maratua...

If the Maratua population indeed belongs to L sperata ss, the geography strongly suggests that juliae would be more likely than trochilus.

Richard Klim said:

Steve, that does seem rather surprising. However, checking the distribution map in Cheke & Mann 2001 (Sunbirds), Maratua is actually slightly further (~350km) from the nearest mapped population of L sperata brasiliana in Kalimantan than from the nearest population of L sperata sensu stricto (L s juliae on Sibutu, Sulu Archipelago, ~300km distant). But the later map in Cheke & Mann 2008 (HBW 13) depicts a population of brasiliana on the Sambaliung Peninsula, only ~100km from Maratua...

If the Maratua population indeed belongs to L sperata ss, the geography strongly suggests that juliae would be more likely than trochilus.

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Yes, it would suggest that, however the taxon is not a juliae, whatever it is. It does resemble a race trochilus (there is a photo on OBI). However, the closest trochilus range in SC Mindanao (S Cotabato, and the southernmost part of Davao del Sur), and on the southernmost islands of the Palawan IBA (e.g., Balabac). SC Mindanao is approximately 900 km from Maratua, and Balabac is ca. 750 km. Were we to take Balabac, then we would have to hypothesize that the race somehow has never been recorded from any of the islands off northern Sabah, from eastern Sabah, from northeastern Kalimantan, nor from any of the coastal islands found going north to south in that percourse. According to Susan Myers, the bird that ranges in the islands off of east Kalimantan is L. b. brasiliana. Admittedly, the bird on Maratua does not look like b. brasiliana. However, I would be flabberghasted to find that if somebody actually did do the genetics, that the Maratua bird is actually a race s. trochilus. It might look like it, but unless Maratua I. is not actually a long-lost Atlantean spaceship that transported itself from the Palawan IBA thousands of years ago, well, the entire question does not make much sense to my limited mental capacity.

cuckooroller said:

Admittedly, the bird on Maratua does not look like b. brasiliana. However, I would be flabberghasted to find that if somebody actually did do the genetics, that the Maratua bird is actually a race s. trochilus. It might look like it, but unless Maratua I. is not actually a long-lost Atlantean spaceship that transported itself from the Palawan IBA thousands of years ago, well, the entire question does not make much sense to my limited mental capacity.

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Agreed. Even if the Maratua population happens to resemble trochilus, it should arguably be treated as a distinct isolated taxon rather than assigned to a highly disjunct subspecies (separated geographically by the range of juliae).

Pale-blue Monarch

IOC World Bird List v3.5 (Draft) now excludes sspp aeria and catarmanensis.
www.worldbirdnames.org/updates/species-updates/

Btw, www.worldbirdnames.org:

NOTE: Transition to 3.5 is underway. Thanks for your patience.

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