Madagaskarbrillenvogel

Bestimmung

This white-eye grows to a length of about 10 cm (4 in). The upperparts, wings and tail are a dark olive green, the throat is yellow and the breast and belly pale grey. The white eye ring is incomplete, there being a gap at the front of the reddish-brown eye. The upper mandible of the beak is black and the lower mandible is grey. The legs and feet are greyish-blue.

Taxonomie

In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the Malagasy white-eye in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in Madagascar. He used the French name Le petit figuier de Madagascar and the Latin Ficedula Madagascariensis minor. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson. One of these was the Malagasy white-eye. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Motacilla maderaspatana and cited Brisson's work. Although Linnaeus gave the type locality as Madagascar he confusingly used the specific name maderaspatana which is Neo-Latin for Madras (now Chennai) in India. This species is now placed in the genus Zosterops that was introduced by the naturalists Nicholas Vigors and Thomas Horsfield in 1827.<p>Four subspecies are recognised:

Wissenschaftlicher Name

Zosterops maderaspatanus

Autorität

(Linnaeus, 1766)

Ordnung

Passeriformes

Familie

Zosteropidae

Gattung

Zosterops

Verbreitung und Lebensraum

The Malagasy white-eye occurs in Madagascar and the Seychelles. Small groups of these birds can be found in woodland, foraging among the branches and flitting between the trees, calling constantly to each other with a soft "pee-u".

Zugverhalten

Standvogel

Verhalten

Zugverhalten: Standvogel.

Schutzstatus

Bestandstrend: rückläufig.

Bestandstrend

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