The brown-headed honeyeater (''Melithreptus brevirostris'') is a species of

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by t ...

bird in the family

Meliphagidae The honeyeaters are a large and diverse family, Meliphagidae, of small to medium-sized birds. The family includes the Australian chats, myzomelas, friarbirds, wattlebirds, miners and melidectes. They are most common in Australia and New Guinea ...

. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. Its natural

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

s are temperate

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

s and Mediterranean-type shrubby vegetation.

Taxonomy

The brown-headed honeyeater was first described by Vigors & Horsfield in 1827. Its species name is derived from the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

terms ''brevis'' 'short', and ''rostrum'' 'beak'. Five subspecies have been described. The race ''magnirostris'' from

Kangaroo Island Kangaroo Island, also known as Karta Pintingga (literally 'Island of the Dead' in the language of the Kaurna people), is Australia's third-largest island, after Tasmania and Melville Island. It lies in the state of South Australia, southwest ...

has a noticeably larger bill. It is a member of the genus '' Melithreptus'', with several species of similar size and all black-headed, apart from this species, in the

honeyeater The honeyeaters are a large and diverse family (biology), family, Meliphagidae, of small to medium-sized birds. The family includes the Epthianura, Australian chats, myzomelas, friarbirds, wattlebirds, Manorina, miners and melidectes. They are ...

family

. Molecular markers show the brown-headed honeyeater is most closely related to the

black-chinned honeyeater The black-chinned honeyeater (''Melithreptus gularis'') is a species of passerine bird in the family Meliphagidae. It is endemic to Australia. Two subspecies are recognised. Its natural habitats are temperate forests and subtropical or tropical d ...

, with the strong-billed honeyeater an earlier offshoot between 6.7 and 3.4 million years ago.

Description

A small honeyeater ranging from 13 to 15 cm (5.2–6 in) in length, it is olive-brown above and buff below, with a brown head, nape and throat, a cream or orange patch of bare skin over the eye, and a dull white crescent-shaped patch on the nape. The legs and feet are orange. It makes a scratchy ' call.

Distribution

The brown-headed honeyeater ranges from central-southern Queensland, down through central and eastern New South Wales (though generally west of the

Great Dividing Range The Great Dividing Range, also known as the East Australian Cordillera or the Eastern Highlands, is a cordillera system in eastern Australia consisting of an expansive collection of mountain ranges, plateaus and rolling hills, that runs rough ...

), across Victoria and into eastern South Australia, where it is found in the Flinders Ranges, around the lower Murray River region, and also on the Eyre Peninsula. A subspecies ''M. b. leucogenys'' occurs in south-western Western Australia.

Diet

Insects form the bulk of the diet, and like its close relatives, the black-chinned and strong-billed honeyeaters, the brown-headed honeyeater forages by probing in the bark of trunks and branches of trees.

Breeding

Brown-headed honeyeaters may nest from July to December, breeding once or twice during this time. The nest is a thick-walled bowl of grasses and bits of bark, lined with softer plant material, hidden in the outer foliage of a tall tree, usually a eucalypt. Two or three eggs are laid, 16 x 13 mm in size, and shiny, buff-pink, sparsely spotted with red-brown (more so on the larger end).

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2667669 brown-headed honeyeater Birds of New South Wales Birds of Queensland Birds of South Australia Birds of Victoria (Australia) Birds of Western Australia Endemic birds of Australia brown-headed honeyeater Taxonomy articles created by Polbot