Friday 29 March 2019

Swinhoe's White-eye (Zosterops simplex)

OTHER NAMES: (formerly) Oriental White-Eye
Latin Etymology: Zosterops ("Girdle eye") simplex ("plain")
Adult Swinhoe's White-eye (subspecies Z. s. erwiniat Sungei Buloh, Singapore - February 2019

Featured Subspecies: Zosterops simplex erwini
Weight: ?  /  Length: 9.6cm  /  Wingspan: ?
ABSENT FROM UK IUCN Red List: Least Concern

The taxonomy of the White-eyes can be described as something of a tangle; just last year a major revaluation of many of the species lead to the reshuffling of various different populations into different species.  In the case of this bird, one year ago he would have been considered an Oriental White-eye, but as of 2018, the South East Asian population of that bird was shifted to being part of Swinhoe's White-eye which prior to that same point had been considered just a subspecies of Japanese White-eye.  Meanwhile, the name Oriental White-eye is now considered dead because Oriental White-eyes now are no longer considered to live in the "Orient" so the entire species was renamed Indian White-eye.  That's not even all the revisions that were made to the genus' taxonomy!  Swinhoe's White-eye were originally native to Singapore, but went extinct, but a new population has arisen from escaped caged birds.

Related Species:
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Zosteropidae
Genus: Zosterops
SUBSPECIES: Z. s. simlex, Z. s. hainanus, Z. s. erwini, Z. s. williamsoni, Z. s. salvadorii

 - Sighting Locations -
SINGAPORE - A locally common resident.
 - CAMBODIA/SINGAPORE 2019 TRIP: One at at Sungei Buloh

Further Notes: BirdForum Opus*, IUCN Red List, RSPB, Wikipedia, Xeno-canto*

No comments:

Post a Comment