The golden monarch (''Carterornis chrysomela'') 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 Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

in the family

Monarchidae The monarchs (family Monarchidae) comprise a family of over 100 passerine birds which includes shrikebills, paradise flycatchers, and magpie-larks. Monarchids are small insectivorous songbirds with long tails. They inhabit forest or woodland a ...

found in

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...

. 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 subtropical or tropical moist lowland

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 subtropical or tropical moist

montane forest Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is a crucial f ...

. The golden monarch displays marked

sexual dimorphism Sexual dimorphism is the condition where the sexes of the same animal and/or plant species exhibit different morphological characteristics, particularly characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most ani ...

, the male a striking golden colour with black mask, wings and tail, the female a golden or golden-olive colour. Both bear a characteristic 'teardrop' white pattern below the eye.

Taxonomy and systematics

The golden monarch was first described by French naturalist

Prosper Garnot Prosper Garnot (13 January 1794 – 8 October 1838) was a French surgeon and naturalist. Garnot was born at Brest. He was an assistant surgeon under Louis Isidore Duperrey on ''La Coquille'' during its circumnavigation of the globe (1822–1825). ...

in 1827. It was originally described in the genus ''

Muscicapa ''Muscicapa'' is a genus of passerine birds belonging to the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae, and therein to the typical flycatchers of subfamily Muscicapinae. They are widespread across Europe, Africa and Asia with most species occur ...

'' and then placed in the genus ''

Monarcha ''Monarcha'' is a genus of bird in the family Monarchidae. They are found in Australia and Melanesia. Taxonomy and systematics The genus ''Monarcha'' was introduced by naturalists Nicholas Vigors and Thomas Horsfield in 1827 with the black-fac ...

'' until moved to ''Carterornis'' in 2009. The golden monarch is a member of a group of birds termed

monarch flycatcher The monarchs (family Monarchidae) comprise a family of over 100 passerine birds which includes shrikebills, paradise flycatchers, and magpie-larks. Monarchids are small insectivorous songbirds with long tails. They inhabit forest or woodland a ...

s. This group is considered either as a subfamily Monarchinae, together with the

fantail Fantails are small insectivorous songbirds of the genus ''Rhipidura'' in the family Rhipiduridae, native to Australasia, Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent. Most of the species are about long, specialist aerial feeders, and named as "f ...

s as part of the drongo family Dicruridae, or as a family Monarchidae in its own right. They are not closely related to their namesakes, the

Old World flycatcher The Old World flycatchers are a large family, the Muscicapidae, of small passerine birds restricted to the Old World (Europe, Africa and Asia), with the exception of several vagrants and two species, Bluethroat (''Luscinia svecica)'' and Norther ...

s of the family

Muscicapidae The Old World flycatchers are a large family, the Muscicapidae, of small passerine birds restricted to the Old World (Europe, Africa and Asia), with the exception of several vagrants and two species, Bluethroat (''Luscinia svecica)'' and Norther ...

as early molecular research in the late 1980s and early 1990s revealed that the monarchs belong to a large group of mainly Australasian birds known as the

Corvida The "Corvida" were one of two "parvorders" contained within the suborder Passeri, as proposed in the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy, the other being Passerida. Standard taxonomic practice would place them at the rank of infraorder. More recent resea ...

parvorder Order ( la, ordo) is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between family and class. In biological classification, the order is a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms and ...

comprising many tropical and Australian passerines. More recently, the grouping has been refined somewhat as the monarchs have been classified in a 'Core corvine' group with the crows and ravens, shrikes, birds of paradise, fantails, drongos and mudnest builders. Alternate names for the golden monarch include the black-and-gold monarch, black-and-yellow monarch and black-and-yellow monarch flycatcher.

Subspecies

There are nine subspecies recognized: * ''C. c. aruensis'' - ( Salvadori, 1874): Originally described as a separate species in the genus ''

''. Found in south-western

and

Aru Islands The Aru Islands Regency ( id, Kabupaten Kepulauan Aru) is a group of about 95 low-lying islands in the Maluku Islands of eastern Indonesia. It also forms a regency of Maluku Province, with a land area of . At the 2011 Census the Regency had a po ...

(off south-western New Guinea) * ''C. c. melanonotus'' - ( Sclater, PL, 1877): Originally described as a separate species in the genus ''Monarcha''. Found on western Papuan islands and north-western New Guinea * ''C. c. kordensis'' - ( Meyer, AB, 1874): Originally described as a separate species in the genus ''Monarcha''. Found on

Biak Biak is an island located in Cenderawasih Bay near the northern coast of Papua (province), Papua, an Indonesian province, and is just northwest of New Guinea. Biak is the largest island in its small archipelago, and has many atolls, reefs, and c ...

(off north-western New Guinea) * ''C. c. aurantiacus'' - (Meyer, AB, 1891): Found in northern New Guinea * ''C. c. nitidus'' - (

De Vis Charles Walter de Vis (Birmingham, England, 9 May 1829 – Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 30 April 1915),

, 1897): Originally described as a separate species in the genus ''

Poecilodryas ''Poecilodryas'' is a genus of passerine birds in the Australasian robin family Petroicidae. The genus was erected by the English ornithologist and bird artist John Gould in 1865. The type species was subsequently designated as the buff-sided ...

''. Found in eastern and south-eastern New Guinea,

Louisiade Archipelago The Louisiade Archipelago is a string of ten larger volcanic islands frequently fringed by coral reefs, and 90 smaller coral islands in Papua New Guinea. It is located 200 km southeast of New Guinea, stretching over more than and spread ...

* ''C. c. pulcherrimus'' - ( Salomonsen, 1964): Found on

Dyaul Island Dyaul Island (also Djaul) is an island in New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet ...

(

Bismarck Archipelago The Bismarck Archipelago (, ) is a group of islands off the northeastern coast of New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean and is part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. Its area is about 50,000 square km. History The first inhabitants o ...

) * ''C. c. chrysomela'' - (

Lesson A lesson or class is a structured period of time where learning is intended to occur. It involves one or more students (also called pupils or learners in some circumstances) being taught by a teacher or instructor. A lesson may be either one ...

& Garnot, 1827): Found on

New Hanover Island New Hanover Island, (german: Neuhannover), also called Lavongai, is a large volcanic island in the New Ireland Province of Papua New Guinea. This region is part of the Bismarck Archipelago and lies at . Measuring some , it had a population of 5, ...

and New Ireland (Bismarck Archipelago) * ''C. c. whitneyorum'' - (

Mayr Mayr is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Andrea Mayr (born 1979), Austrian female long-distance runner * Ernst Mayr (1904–2005), German American evolutionary biologist * Georg Mayr (1564–1623), Bavarian Jesuit pri ...

, 1955): Found on

Lihir Island Lihir Island (a.k.a. Niolam Island) is the largest island in the Lihir group of islands, 22 km long and 14.5 km wide, in Papua New Guinea's New Ireland Province. It consists of a complex of several overlapping basaltic stratovolcanoes r ...

(Bismarck Archipelago) * ''C. c. tabarensis'' - (Mayr, 1955): Found on

Tabar Island Tabar Island is an island of the Tabar Group of Papua New Guinea, located to the east of New Ireland. It is inhabited by the Tabar people. Geography Tabar Island is the main island of the Tabar Islands and forms part of the New Ireland Provi ...

(Bismarck Archipelago)

Description

Measuring , the golden monarch displays marked

. The male is a bright golden colour with sharply delineated black cheeks and throat, primary wing feathers and tail. It has a pale blue and black bill and dark brown iris, and a distinctive teardrop pattern of white feathers under the eye. The subspecies ''pulcherrima'' has a golden back, others have a black back. The female lacks the black colouring and is instead an olive-greenish with more yellowish underparts. It has black bill and the teardrop pattern under the eye.

Distribution and habitat

The golden monarch is found across

, and to the

to the west, the

D'Entrecasteaux Islands D'Entrecasteaux Islands () are situated near the eastern tip of New Guinea in the Solomon Sea in Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea. The group spans a distance of , has a total land area of approximately and is separated from the Papua New G ...

and the

to the east, but not New Britain. The preferred habitat is lowland rainforest or swamp forest to 700 m (2000 ft), or 1400 m (4000 ft) in New Ireland. It stays mainly in the canopy, although may descend for water.

Feeding

The golden monarch is insectivorous. It may be found in

mixed-species foraging flock A mixed-species feeding flock, also termed a mixed-species foraging flock, mixed hunting party or informally bird wave, is a flock of usually insectivorous birds of different species that join each other and move together while foraging. These ar ...

s with the yellow-bellied gerygone (''Gerygone chrysogaster'') and

Wallace's fairywren Wallace's fairywren (''Sipodotus wallacii'') is a species of bird in the Australasian wren family, Maluridae. It is monotypic within the genus ''Sipodotus''. It is found in New Guinea and the Aru Islands, where its natural habitat is subtropical ...

(''Sipodotus wallacii'').

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1923280 golden monarch Birds of New Guinea Birds of New Ireland Province golden monarch golden monarch Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Taxa named by René Lesson