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Spotted pardalote

December 02, 2023

The spotted pardalote (Pardalotus punctatus) is one of the smallest of all Australian birds at 8 to 10 centimetres (3.1 to 3.9 in) in length, and one of the most colourful; it is sometimes known as the diamondbird. Although moderately common in all of the reasonably fertile parts of Australia (the east coast, the south-east, and the south-west corner) it is seldom seen closely enough to enable identification.[citation needed]

Spotted pardalote
Male, New South Wales
Female, New South Wales
Scientific classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Pardalotidae
Genus: Pardalotus
Species:
P. punctatus
Binomial name
Pardalotus punctatus
(Shaw, 1792)
Approximate distribution

Three subspecies are recognised. The wet tropics spotted pardalote (subspecies militaris) is found in northeastern Queensland, while the distinctive subspecies, the yellow-rumped pardalote (subspecies xanthopyge), is mostly found in drier inland regions of southern Australia, particularly in semi-arid Mallee woodlands. Also occasionally found nesting in burrows in semi-rainforest areas inland from the coast in Mid North Coast NSW

Taxonomy edit

The spotted pardalote was described by English naturalist George Shaw and drawn by Frederick Polydore Nodder in the 1792 work The Naturalist's Miscellany: Or, Coloured Figures Of Natural Objects; Drawn and Described Immediately From Nature. Calling it Pipra punctata, or speckled manakin, Shaw conceded that nothing had been reported of its habits in New Holland (Australia).[2] Early settlers of New South Wales knew it as the Diamond Bird, on account of the spots on its plumage,[3] and John Gould called it the spotted diamond-bird.[4] Other early names include diamond sparrow, bank diamond and diamond dyke, the last two relating to its nest burrows in riverbanks.[5] Indigenous people from lowlands and Perth districts of southern Western Australia knew it as widopwidop and bilyabit, though the terms were also used for the striated pardalote.[6] Headache bird is a colloquial name given it because of the repetitive "sleep-may-be" call uttered in the breeding season.[7]

The species was placed in the new genus Pardalotus by Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot in 1816, who also coined the word "pardalote".[8] Within the genus, its closest relative is the forty-spotted pardalote (Pardalotus quadragintus) based on size and plumage similarities.[9]

Three subspecies are recognised. The nominate subspecies (P. punctatus punctatus) is found from southeastern Queensland through eastern New South Wales, eastern and southern Victoria and into southeastern South Australia, as well as southwestern Western Australia. It is also found across eastern and northwestern Tasmania.[9]

The yellow-rumped pardalote (P. punctatus xanthopyge) was considered for many years to be a separate species native to dryer inland southern Australia. It was described in 1867 amid some controversy. Amateur ornithologist Edward Pierson Ramsay, then 24 years old, recorded that a specimen at the Australian Museum that had been collected by John Leadbeater near the Murray River differed in its plumage from the typical spotted pardalote. The director of the museum, Gerard Krefft, lent the specimen to Ramsay to describe, which he did as Pardalotus chrysoprymnus in a manuscript on 10 December 1866. Krefft advised him that Leadbeater was pushing for the species to be named after him, hence the paper was read but not published in London at a meeting of the Zoological Society of London on 28 February 1867. Meanwhile, Professor Frederick McCoy of the National Museum of Natural History and Geology in Melbourne also published a description of the species from a specimen collected near Swan Hill, in The Australasian newspaper on 29 December 1866, which was formally described on 1 March 1867.[10] McCoy named it Pardalotus xanthopygus, or yellow-backed diamondbird.[11] Ramsay suspected that discussion of his description prompted McCoy to publish his own description; however, McCoy countered that they had been aware it was a separate species for some time. In any case, McCoy's description stood and Ramsay's was consigned to synonymy.[10]

In a 1983 paper, Lester Short and colleagues noted the similarity of plumage and calls between the two taxa and occurrence of hybrid specimens from Victoria where the two forms overlapped.[12] John Woinarski found that around Bendigo (where both taxa occur), more pairs appeared to contain members of both forms than not.[13] Western Australian ornithologist Julian Ford felt evidence of hybridization in Western Australia was lacking and also wondered whether land clearing and habitat alteration had promoted hybridization in southeastern Australia.[14] In their 1999 Directory of Australian Birds, Richard Schodde and Ian Mason relegated the yellow-rumped pardalote to subspecies status on account of the intermediate characteristics of subspecies militaris and the widespread hybridization in southeastern Australia. They felt Ford's evidence for lack of interbreeding in Western and South Australia was not strong, but conceded fieldwork in Western Australia was needed.[9]

The Wet Tropics spotted pardalote (Pardalotus punctatus militaris) is found in coastal central-northern Queensland. It has features in common with both other subspecies.[9]

Description edit

 
The reddish rump of the nominate subspecies is clearly visible (Strangways, Victoria).

Weighing around 6 grams (0.21 oz), the spotted pardalote is 8 to 10 cm (3.1 to 3.9 in) long.[15] The adult male of the nominate subspecies has grey-brown upperparts with numerous paler buff spots, a black crown, wings and tail all with white spots, white eyebrows and reddish rump.[16] The underparts are pale-buff-cinnamon, darkening to a more ochre at the breast, with a demarcated yellow throat and vent.[9] The female is duller overall.[16] The yellow-rumped subspecies is larger overall with a relatively smaller bill. The adult male has finer, white spots on its back, a bright yellow rump, and a cream breast. The adult female has finer spots than the adult female of the nominate subspecies. The Wet Tropics subspecies is smaller with a relatively larger bill. The adult male has a reddish rump and pale- to cinnamon-buff underparts.[9]

Distribution and habitat edit

George Caley reported that it was not common around Sydney even in early settlement days.[3] Spotted pardalote numbers appear to be declining, especially in urban areas,[17] but the species is not considered endangered at this time.[1]

Nesting edit

Spotted pardalotes breed between August or September to December or January—generally earlier in the year in northern parts of their range and later in southern areas. The nest is an underground horizontal oval chamber lined with shredded bark, linked by a tunnel 0.5 to 1.5 metres (1 ft 8 in to 4 ft 11 in) long to a hole in the side of a riverbank or slope in a shaded location.[18] The chamber is generally higher than the entrance tunnel, presumably to avoid flooding.[4] Birds have used carpet rolls and garage roll-a-doors to nest in on occasion.[15] Pairs breed once a year, producing a clutch of 3 to 4 round shiny white eggs 16 mm (0.63 in) long by 13 mm (0.51 in) wide.[18] The eggs are incubated for 19 days until they hatch, with nestlings spending another 21 days in the nest.[15]

Pairs make soft, whistling wheet-wheet calls to one another throughout the day, which carry for quite a distance. One of the difficulties in locating a pardalote is that the contact call is in fact two calls: an initial call and an almost instant response, and thus can come from two different directions.

Gallery edit

References edit

  1. ^ a b BirdLife International (2016). "Pardalotus punctatus". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2016: e.T22704490A93971454. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22704490A93971454.en. Retrieved 12 November 2021.
  2. ^ Shaw, George (1792). The naturalist's miscellany, or Coloured figures of natural objects. Vol. 4. London, United Kingdom: Nodder & Co. pp. 111–13.
  3. ^ a b Vigors Nicholas Aylward; Horsfield, Thomas (1827). "A description of the Australian birds in the collection of the Linnean Society; with an attempt at arranging them according to their natural affinities". Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 15: 170–331 [237–38]. doi:10.1111/j.1095-8339.1826.tb00115.x.
  4. ^ a b Gould, John (1865). Handbook to the Birds of Australia. Vol. 1. self-published. pp. 157–58. ISBN 1-116-37820-5.
  5. ^ Gray, Jeannie; Fraser, Ian (2013). Australian Bird Names: A Complete Guide. Collingwood, Victoria: CSIRO Publishing. p. 191. ISBN 978-0-643-10471-6.
  6. ^ Abbott, Ian (2009). "Aboriginal names of bird species in south-west Western Australia, with suggestions for their adoption into common usage" (PDF). Conservation Science Western Australia Journal. 7 (2): 213–78 [259].
  7. ^ Evans, Ondine (25 September 2012). "Spotted pardalote". Australian Museum website. Australian Museum. Retrieved 12 September 2016.
  8. ^ Vieillot, Louis Pierre (1816). Analyse d'une Nouvelle Ornithologie Élémentaire. Paris, France: Déterville. p. 31.
  9. ^ a b c d e f Schodde, Richard; Mason, Ian J. (1999). The Directory of Australian Birds: Passerines. A Taxonomic and Zoogeographic Atlas of the Biodiversity of Birds in Australia and its Territories. Collingwood, Victoria: CSIRO Publishing. pp. 122–23. ISBN 9780643102934.
  10. ^ a b Hindwood, K.A. (1950). "Pardalotus xanthopygus: A competition in 'Christening'". Emu. 49 (3): 205–08. doi:10.1071/MU949205.
  11. ^ McCoy, Frederick (1867). "XXXI.—On two new species of birds found in Victoria". Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 19 (3): 184–85. doi:10.1080/00222936708679752.
  12. ^ Short, Lester L.; Horne, Jennifer F.M.; Schodde, Richard (1983). "Vocal Behaviour, Morphology, and Hybridization of Australian Spotted and Yellow-rumped Pardalotes (Aves, Pardalotus)" (PDF). American Museum Novitates.
  13. ^ Woinarski, John C.Z. (1984). "Interbreeding of the Spotted and Yellow-rumped Pardalotes Pardalotus punctatus and P. xanthopygus". Emu. 84 (2): 80–86. doi:10.1071/MU9840080.
  14. ^ Ford, Julian (1987). "Hybrid Zones in Australian Birds". Emu. 87 (3): 158–78. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.694.3006. doi:10.1071/MU9870158.
  15. ^ a b c "Spotted pardalote". Birds in Backyards. Retrieved 13 September 2016.
  16. ^ a b Slater, Peter (1974). A Field Guide to Australian Birds. Volume Two: Passerines. Adelaide: Rigby. p. 209. ISBN 0-85179-813-6.
  17. ^ . Birds in Backyards. 9 November 2009. Archived from the original on 12 August 2011. Retrieved 9 August 2011.
  18. ^ a b Beruldsen, Gordon (2003). Australian Birds: Their Nests and Eggs. Kenmore Hills, Qld: self. p. 288. ISBN 0-646-42798-9.

External links edit

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pardalotus punctatus.
 
Wikispecies has information related to Pardalotus punctatus.
  • Spotted Pardalote videos, photos & sounds on the Internet Bird Collection.

December 02, 2023
spotted, pardalote, spotted, pardalote, pardalotus, punctatus, smallest, australian, birds, centimetres, length, most, colourful, sometimes, known, diamondbird, although, moderately, common, reasonably, fertile, parts, australia, east, coast, south, east, sout. The spotted pardalote Pardalotus punctatus is one of the smallest of all Australian birds at 8 to 10 centimetres 3 1 to 3 9 in in length and one of the most colourful it is sometimes known as the diamondbird Although moderately common in all of the reasonably fertile parts of Australia the east coast the south east and the south west corner it is seldom seen closely enough to enable identification citation needed Spotted pardaloteMale New South WalesFemale New South WalesConservation statusLeast Concern IUCN 3 1 1 Scientific classificationDomain EukaryotaKingdom AnimaliaPhylum ChordataClass AvesOrder PasseriformesFamily PardalotidaeGenus PardalotusSpecies P punctatusBinomial namePardalotus punctatus Shaw 1792 Approximate distributionThree subspecies are recognised The wet tropics spotted pardalote subspecies militaris is found in northeastern Queensland while the distinctive subspecies the yellow rumped pardalote subspecies xanthopyge is mostly found in drier inland regions of southern Australia particularly in semi arid Mallee woodlands Also occasionally found nesting in burrows in semi rainforest areas inland from the coast in Mid North Coast NSW Contents 1 Taxonomy 2 Description 3 Distribution and habitat 4 Nesting 5 Gallery 6 References 7 External linksTaxonomy editThe spotted pardalote was described by English naturalist George Shaw and drawn by Frederick Polydore Nodder in the 1792 work The Naturalist s Miscellany Or Coloured Figures Of Natural Objects Drawn and Described Immediately From Nature Calling it Pipra punctata or speckled manakin Shaw conceded that nothing had been reported of its habits in New Holland Australia 2 Early settlers of New South Wales knew it as the Diamond Bird on account of the spots on its plumage 3 and John Gould called it the spotted diamond bird 4 Other early names include diamond sparrow bank diamond and diamond dyke the last two relating to its nest burrows in riverbanks 5 Indigenous people from lowlands and Perth districts of southern Western Australia knew it as widopwidop and bilyabit though the terms were also used for the striated pardalote 6 Headache bird is a colloquial name given it because of the repetitive sleep may be call uttered in the breeding season 7 The species was placed in the new genus Pardalotus by Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot in 1816 who also coined the word pardalote 8 Within the genus its closest relative is the forty spotted pardalote Pardalotus quadragintus based on size and plumage similarities 9 Three subspecies are recognised The nominate subspecies P punctatus punctatus is found from southeastern Queensland through eastern New South Wales eastern and southern Victoria and into southeastern South Australia as well as southwestern Western Australia It is also found across eastern and northwestern Tasmania 9 The yellow rumped pardalote P punctatus xanthopyge was considered for many years to be a separate species native to dryer inland southern Australia It was described in 1867 amid some controversy Amateur ornithologist Edward Pierson Ramsay then 24 years old recorded that a specimen at the Australian Museum that had been collected by John Leadbeater near the Murray River differed in its plumage from the typical spotted pardalote The director of the museum Gerard Krefft lent the specimen to Ramsay to describe which he did as Pardalotus chrysoprymnus in a manuscript on 10 December 1866 Krefft advised him that Leadbeater was pushing for the species to be named after him hence the paper was read but not published in London at a meeting of the Zoological Society of London on 28 February 1867 Meanwhile Professor Frederick McCoy of the National Museum of Natural History and Geology in Melbourne also published a description of the species from a specimen collected near Swan Hill in The Australasian newspaper on 29 December 1866 which was formally described on 1 March 1867 10 McCoy named it Pardalotus xanthopygus or yellow backed diamondbird 11 Ramsay suspected that discussion of his description prompted McCoy to publish his own description however McCoy countered that they had been aware it was a separate species for some time In any case McCoy s description stood and Ramsay s was consigned to synonymy 10 In a 1983 paper Lester Short and colleagues noted the similarity of plumage and calls between the two taxa and occurrence of hybrid specimens from Victoria where the two forms overlapped 12 John Woinarski found that around Bendigo where both taxa occur more pairs appeared to contain members of both forms than not 13 Western Australian ornithologist Julian Ford felt evidence of hybridization in Western Australia was lacking and also wondered whether land clearing and habitat alteration had promoted hybridization in southeastern Australia 14 In their 1999 Directory of Australian Birds Richard Schodde and Ian Mason relegated the yellow rumped pardalote to subspecies status on account of the intermediate characteristics of subspecies militaris and the widespread hybridization in southeastern Australia They felt Ford s evidence for lack of interbreeding in Western and South Australia was not strong but conceded fieldwork in Western Australia was needed 9 The Wet Tropics spotted pardalote Pardalotus punctatus militaris is found in coastal central northern Queensland It has features in common with both other subspecies 9 Description edit nbsp The reddish rump of the nominate subspecies is clearly visible Strangways Victoria Weighing around 6 grams 0 21 oz the spotted pardalote is 8 to 10 cm 3 1 to 3 9 in long 15 The adult male of the nominate subspecies has grey brown upperparts with numerous paler buff spots a black crown wings and tail all with white spots white eyebrows and reddish rump 16 The underparts are pale buff cinnamon darkening to a more ochre at the breast with a demarcated yellow throat and vent 9 The female is duller overall 16 The yellow rumped subspecies is larger overall with a relatively smaller bill The adult male has finer white spots on its back a bright yellow rump and a cream breast The adult female has finer spots than the adult female of the nominate subspecies The Wet Tropics subspecies is smaller with a relatively larger bill The adult male has a reddish rump and pale to cinnamon buff underparts 9 Distribution and habitat editGeorge Caley reported that it was not common around Sydney even in early settlement days 3 Spotted pardalote numbers appear to be declining especially in urban areas 17 but the species is not considered endangered at this time 1 Nesting editSpotted pardalotes breed between August or September to December or January generally earlier in the year in northern parts of their range and later in southern areas The nest is an underground horizontal oval chamber lined with shredded bark linked by a tunnel 0 5 to 1 5 metres 1 ft 8 in to 4 ft 11 in long to a hole in the side of a riverbank or slope in a shaded location 18 The chamber is generally higher than the entrance tunnel presumably to avoid flooding 4 Birds have used carpet rolls and garage roll a doors to nest in on occasion 15 Pairs breed once a year producing a clutch of 3 to 4 round shiny white eggs 16 mm 0 63 in long by 13 mm 0 51 in wide 18 The eggs are incubated for 19 days until they hatch with nestlings spending another 21 days in the nest 15 Pairs make soft whistling wheet wheet calls to one another throughout the day which carry for quite a distance One of the difficulties in locating a pardalote is that the contact call is in fact two calls an initial call and an almost instant response and thus can come from two different directions Gallery edit source source source Samsonvale Queensland Australia source source source Singing male Armstrong Creek Queensland Australia source source source source source source Male and female burrowing Thirlmere NSW Australia nbsp Female with nesting material Risdon Brook Tasmania Australia References edit a b BirdLife International 2016 Pardalotus punctatus IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016 e T22704490A93971454 doi 10 2305 IUCN UK 2016 3 RLTS T22704490A93971454 en Retrieved 12 November 2021 Shaw George 1792 The naturalist s miscellany or Coloured figures of natural objects Vol 4 London United Kingdom Nodder amp Co pp 111 13 a b Vigors Nicholas Aylward Horsfield Thomas 1827 A description of the Australian birds in the collection of the Linnean Society with an attempt at arranging them according to their natural affinities Trans Linn Soc Lond 15 170 331 237 38 doi 10 1111 j 1095 8339 1826 tb00115 x a b Gould John 1865 Handbook to the Birds of Australia Vol 1 self published pp 157 58 ISBN 1 116 37820 5 Gray Jeannie Fraser Ian 2013 Australian Bird Names A Complete Guide Collingwood Victoria CSIRO Publishing p 191 ISBN 978 0 643 10471 6 Abbott Ian 2009 Aboriginal names of bird species in south west Western Australia with suggestions for their adoption into common usage PDF Conservation Science Western Australia Journal 7 2 213 78 259 Evans Ondine 25 September 2012 Spotted pardalote Australian Museum website Australian Museum Retrieved 12 September 2016 Vieillot Louis Pierre 1816 Analyse d une Nouvelle Ornithologie Elementaire Paris France Deterville p 31 a b c d e f Schodde Richard Mason Ian J 1999 The Directory of Australian Birds Passerines A Taxonomic and Zoogeographic Atlas of the Biodiversity of Birds in Australia and its Territories Collingwood Victoria CSIRO Publishing pp 122 23 ISBN 9780643102934 a b Hindwood K A 1950 Pardalotus xanthopygus A competition in Christening Emu 49 3 205 08 doi 10 1071 MU949205 McCoy Frederick 1867 XXXI On two new species of birds found in Victoria Annals and Magazine of Natural History 19 3 184 85 doi 10 1080 00222936708679752 Short Lester L Horne Jennifer F M Schodde Richard 1983 Vocal Behaviour Morphology and Hybridization of Australian Spotted and Yellow rumped Pardalotes Aves Pardalotus PDF American Museum Novitates Woinarski John C Z 1984 Interbreeding of the Spotted and Yellow rumped Pardalotes Pardalotus punctatus and P xanthopygus Emu 84 2 80 86 doi 10 1071 MU9840080 Ford Julian 1987 Hybrid Zones in Australian Birds Emu 87 3 158 78 CiteSeerX 10 1 1 694 3006 doi 10 1071 MU9870158 a b c Spotted pardalote Birds in Backyards Retrieved 13 September 2016 a b Slater Peter 1974 A Field Guide to Australian Birds Volume Two Passerines Adelaide Rigby p 209 ISBN 0 85179 813 6 Small insect eating birds Birds in Backyards 9 November 2009 Archived from the original on 12 August 2011 Retrieved 9 August 2011 a b Beruldsen Gordon 2003 Australian Birds Their Nests and Eggs Kenmore Hills Qld self p 288 ISBN 0 646 42798 9 External links edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pardalotus punctatus nbsp Wikispecies has information related to Pardalotus punctatus Spotted Pardalote videos photos amp sounds on the Internet Bird Collection Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Spotted pardalote amp oldid 1169507581, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, 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