Becco a spillo orientale

Identificazione

The male eastern spinebill is 13–16 cm (5–6.5 in) long, and has a long thin downcurved black bill with a black head, white throat with a chestnut patch and red iris. It has a brownish-red nape, a grey-brown back and pale cinnamon underparts. The dark tail is tipped with white laterally. Females are smaller with olive-grey crown, similar in colouring to male but slightly duller; and juveniles are pale warm cinnamon below with grey to olive-brown upperparts, a brown-red eye and orange base to the bill. The call is a clear, high-pitched, staccato piping "chip-chip-chip", sometimes repeated for lengthy periods.

Tassonomia

Originally described as Certhia tenuirostris by the English ornithologist John Latham in 1801, it is a member of the small genus Acanthorhynchus with one other, the western spinebill of Western Australia. The generic name is derived from the Greek translation of spinebill, namely acantho-/ακανθο- 'spine' and rhynchos/ρυνχος 'bill'. Its specific epithet is from Latin tenuis 'narrow' and rostrum 'bill'. Other English names include spine-billed honeyeater and awl-bird or cobbler's awl bird. The eastern spinebill is polytypic, consisting of the subspecies A. t. cairnsensis, A. t. dubius, A. t. halmaturinus, and the nominate subspecies A. t. tenuirostris.<p>The eastern spinebill forms a superspecies with the closely related western spinebill. Scientists believe the two sister species are descended from a shared ancestor whose once widespread populations were separated by climate change. During a past period of desertification, that ancestor species retreated to refuges in the southwestern and southeastern corners of the continent, and evolved into the two present-day spinebill species. Recent DNA studies have shown that the two spinebills belong to a clade which is a sister taxon to all other honeyeaters.

Nome scientifico

Acanthorhynchus tenuirostris

Autorità

(Latham, 1801)

Ordine

Passeriformi

Famiglia

Meliphagidae

Genere

Acanthorhynchus

Areale e habitat

Eastern spinebills are found in dry sclerophyll forest, scrub and heathland from the Cooktown area in North Queensland south through New South Wales east of the Great Dividing Range, through Victoria and into the Flinders Ranges in eastern South Australia as well as throughout Tasmania. Adaptable, they can be found in urban gardens with sufficient vegetation to act as cover and a food source.

Migrazione

Resident species

Conservazione

Tendenza della popolazione

declining