Family Old World Flycatchers and Chats (Muscicapidae)

Vulnerable

White-bellied Blue Robin (Myiomela albiventris)

Taxonomy

French: Myiomèle à ventre blanc German: Weißbauchschmätzer Spanish: Alicorto ventriblanco

Other common names: White-bellied Shortwing

Taxonomy:

Callene albiventris

Blanford

, 1868,

Palni Hills, India

Until recently placed in genus Brachypteryx and treated as conspecific with M. major. Monotypic.

Distribution:

Extreme S Western Ghats (S of Palaghat Gap), in S Kerala and W Tamil Nadu (S India).

Descriptive notes

14 cm. Male is slaty-blue above and to breast, shading to blue-grey flanks clear-cut from white mid-belly to vent; white supercilium, black lores; black bill and legs. Female... read more

Voice

Song a loud, sustained, sprightly, thrush-like series of short beautiful phrases, each consisting... read more

Habitat

Streamside vegetation and wet areas of undergrowth within forest patches (sholas) and densely... read more

Food and feeding

No information; lives in low vegetation and on ground, where presumably forages for small insects and other invertebrates.

Breeding

Mar–Jul, mainly Apr–May, but juvenile with unossified skull in Jan. Few nests found, much moss used in construction. Other... read more

Movements

Sedentary. Some possible altitudinal movement suspected.

Status and conservation

VULNERABLE. Previously considered Endangered. Very small and severely fragmented range on isolated mountain tops is contracting rapidly as a result of conversion of forest... read more

Bibliography

Public comments

Conservation

Populations on two sky island connected only by a terrain that got deforested in the past centuary showed different song structure indicating a recent fragmentation.

References

Robin, V. V.;Katti, Madhusudan;Purushotham, Chetana;Sancheti, Aditi;Sinha, Anindya 2011. Singing in the sky: song variation in an endemic bird on the sky islands of southern India. Animal Behaviour. 82: 513–520

http://www.skyisland.in/Shortwing_Project_files/robin_wbs_song.pdf

Thank you bng.liocichlas!

Thank you bng.liocichlas! Unfortunately, I have been unable to access this paper, since the server appears to be offline. I have included the Plos ONE ref.

Updated Link to the paper

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233406045_Singing_in_the_sky_So...

Song Characteristics

More information on differences in song characteristics of this species and Nilgiri Blue Robin in a recently published paper.

Purushotham, Chetana B. and Robin, V. V. 2016. Sky island bird populations isolated by ancient genetic barriers are characterized by different song traits than those isolated by recent deforestation, Ecology and Evolution. url = http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.2475

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Recommended citation

Collar, N., de Juana, E. & Sharpe, C.J. (2018). White-bellied Blue Robin (Myiomela albiventris). In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. (retrieved from https://www.hbw.com/node/58510 on 16 December 2018).

Scientific classification

Class: Aves

Order: Passeriformes

Family: Muscicapidae

— Show family text —

In past, traditionally treated as an outsize family that also included expanded versions of Sylviidae, Timaliidae and Turdidae; these three were subsequently split off as three separate families, but still in much expanded form as compared to their current treatment. Since publication of HBW, limits of all these families have been dramatically rewritten due to a barrage of occasionally contradictory molecular data. Within present family problems remain, particularly due to incomplete taxon sampling, but near-complete screening to species level has now been attempted for at least a handful of genera (notably Oenanthe and Saxicola), and large elements of consensus have emerged, among them the recognition of four principal lineages, here treated as subfamilies. Most notable development involves transfer of many genera from Turdidae to present family, including Alethe, Cichladusa, Heteroxenicus, Brachypteryx, Heinrichia, Myophonus, Monticola, Thamnolaea, Myrmecocichla, Pogonocichla, Swynnertonia, Stiphrornis, Sheppardia, Cossypha, Xenocopsychus, Irania, Luscinia, Erithacus, Tarsiger, Cercotrichas, Copsychus, Phoenicurus, Saxicola and Oenanthe. Genetic sampling has also revealed extensive paraphyly, with the result that many species have switched genera. Some genera have disappeared completely into synonymy (e.g. Erythropygia), and others have shrunk to just one or two species (e.g. Luscinia), while a few have become substantially larger (e.g. Cercotrichas, Oenanthe).