Family Waxbills (Estrildidae)
Least Concern
White-rumped Munia (Lonchura striata)
Taxonomy
French: Capucin domino German: Spitzschwanz-Bronzemännchen Spanish: Capuchino culiblanco
Taxonomy:
Loxia striata
Linnaeus
, 1766,Bourbon Island [=Reunion]; error = Sri Lanka
.
Subspecies and Distribution
L. s. striata
(Linnaeus, 1766) – W & NE peninsular India, and Sri Lanka.
L. s. acuticauda
(Hodgson, 1836) – N India (E from Uttarakhand) and S Nepal E in Himalayan foothills to Bangladesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Myanmar (except S), NW Thailand, N Laos and NW Vietnam (W Tonkin).
L. s. fumigata
(Walden, 1873) – Andaman Is.
L. s. semistriata
(A. O. Hume, 1874) – Nicobar Is.
L. s. subsquamicollis
(E. C. S. Baker, 1925) – S Myanmar (Tenasserim), Thailand (except NW), C & S Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia S to Singapore, Sumatra and Bangka I.
L. s. swinhoei
(Cabanis, 1882) – S & SE China (E from Yunnan to Shanghai), NE Vietnam (E Tonkin), Hainan and Taiwan; also Ryukyu Is, where perhaps natural colonists#R.
Descriptive notes
11–12 cm; 9·5-13 g. Nominate race has forehead, face and throat to upper breast blackish-brown, crown to back dark brown with fine pale shaft streaks, rump white,... read more
Voice
Loud call or distance call of male a single "peep!", female gives double or churring... read more
Habitat
Dry open grassland to shrubby open country, forest edge, weedy clearings, thickets, plantations,... read more
Food and feeding
Grass seeds, mainly rice, also of other grasses (including Eragrostis), bamboo and sedge (Cyperaceae); also seeds from casuarina... read more
Breeding
Season prolonged, nearly all year in India (mainly Feb–Sept) and Thailand, and all year (mainly Jan–Aug) in Malay Peninsula;... read more
Movements
Resident. Apparently highly mobile, as marked individuals in Malay Peninsula had low recapture rate... read more
Status and conservation
Not globally threatened. Common to locally common; uncommon in some parts of range. Locally common in Indian Subcontinent and in China; common throughout SE Asia, local in... read more
All races apart from nominate sometimes considered a separate species, but differences not particularly strong and race acuticauda appears to intergrade with nominate in NE India. Form swinhoei appears distinctive; further research, including vocal and genetic analyses, desirable. Taiwan population sometimes separated as race phaethontoptila, but appears hardly different from swinhoei. Proposed race explita, a replacement for preoccupied sumatrensis (described from Tanjong Kassan, in Sumatra), treated as a synonym of subsquamicollis. Six subspecies recognized.