Odd that my posting below, to which Philip refers, hasn't turned up in my
birding-aus inbox, although Philip's response to my posting has! I can't work
that out! Anyway, Philip asked me to clarify what I meant by ".......Tree
Sparrows (Passer montanus) of Chinese origin, which were introduced to
Melbourne and Tasmania in small numbers in the 19th century, but have long
since disappeared."What I meant, but didn't make clear, was that the Chinese
Tree Sparrows were likely of the race obscuratus, which I believe has long been
subsumed into the general mix of races that now makes up Passer montanus in
Australia.
I'm pretty sure there was a paper in Emu some years back that suggested that
Aussie Tree Sparrows were an amalgum of at least three races, presumably
implying that a new trinomial was in order?
I expect this is well-documented somewhere, but I'm not well up on taxonomy at
that level.
Bill Jolly
From: : ; ;
: Re: [Birding-Aus] SparrowsDate: Thu, 13 Nov
2008 21:51:01 +1100
Very good answer from Bill. I would add that there are of course many species
of the genus Passer (which are the sparrows, the nominate genus of the order,
from which the word passerine is derived) and only two of those were introduced
to Australia. America also has another different family of birds, many or maybe
all of which are called sparrows but these are not the same genus.
The differences between the House Sparrow & Tree Sparrows are far greater than
just "physical differences between them mostly about the head". They are very
different in the extent of sexual dimorphism and as a corollary or consequence
in their social behaviour. (This was the subject of a thesis I did a long time
ago.) The Tree Sparrows being very unusual among a group in which most species
are sexual dimorphic, in that the female plumage is like the typical for the
males of the genus.
I would also add that the native finch the Diamond Firetail is also unhelpfully
called Diamond Sparrow sometimes.
Philip
|
