birding-aus

Taxonomy of Melithreptus honeyeaters

To: <>
Subject: Taxonomy of Melithreptus honeyeaters
From: "Murray Lord" <>
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2010 21:39:07 +1000
For anyone interested in such things, a paper has just been published which 
advocates splitting the White naped Honeyeater into two - the South West WA 
form becoming Melithreptus whitlocki.

This is no particular surprise; Christidis and Boles flagged the possibility 
and the latest Slater field guide has it as a separate species already.  The 
paper advocates that treatment on the basis that genetically the two forms 
currently in White naped are in fact each more closely related to Black headed 
Honeyeater than they are to each other.  While I have not read the entire 
paper, I don't think it says anything that would particularly support splitting 
Golden backed from Black chinned.

The citation of the paper is Toon, Hughes & Joseph 2010. Multilocus analysis of 
honeyeaters (Aves: Meliphagidae) highlights spatio-temporal heterogeneity in 
the influence of biogeographic barriers in the Australian monsoonal zone. Mol 
Ecol: in press.  The abstract can be found at 
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/123571854/abstract

It also makes reference to an in press paper supporting the splitting of the 
Western Ground Parrot.

Murray Lord
Sydney
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