![Acanthiza pusilla - Austin's Ferry](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Acanthiza_pusilla_-_Austin%27s_Ferry.jpg)
The brown thornbill (''Acanthiza pusilla'') is a
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 th ...
bird usually found in eastern and south-eastern
Australia, including
Tasmania
)
, nickname =
, image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdi ...
. It can grow up to long, and feeds on insects. It is brown, grey and white.
The species has five subspecies.
Taxonomy
The brown thornbill is a member of the order
Passeriformes
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 th ...
, the family
Acanthizidae
The Acanthizidae—known as Australian warblers—are a family of passerine birds which includes gerygones, the thornbills ''Acanthiza'', and the scrubwrens of ''Sericornis''. The Acanthizidae family consists of small to medium passerine birds, ...
, and the genus ''
Acanthiza''. It also has five subspecies: ''Acanthiza pusilla pusilla'', ''A. p. diemenensis'', ''A. p. zietzi'', ''A. p. archibaldi'', and ''A. p. dawsonensis''. The species was first described by
George Shaw George Shaw may refer to:
* George Shaw (biologist) (1751–1813), English botanist and zoologist
* George B. Shaw (1854–1894), U.S. Representative from Wisconsin
* George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Irish playwright
* George C. Shaw (1866–196 ...
in 1790.
The nominate subspecies ''A. p. pusilla'' was described by Shaw in 1790 and the subspecies ''A. p. diemenensis'' was first described by
John Gould
John Gould (; 14 September 1804 – 3 February 1881) was an English ornithologist. He published a number of monographs on birds, illustrated by plates produced by his wife, Elizabeth Gould, and several other artists, including Edward Lear, ...
in 1838.
''A. p. zietzi'' was described by
Alfred John North
Alfred John North (11 June 1855 – 6 May 1917) was an Australian ornithologist.
North was born in Melbourne and was educated at Melbourne Grammar School. He was appointed to the Australian Museum, Sydney in 1886 and was given a permanent positi ...
in 1904, ''A. p. dawsonensis'' was described by
Archibald George Campbell in 1922, and ''A. p. archibaldi'' was described by
Gregory Mathews
Gregory Macalister Mathews CBE FRSE FZS FLS (10 September 1876 – 27 March 1949) was an Australian-born amateur ornithologist who spent most of his later life in England.
Life
He was born in Biamble in New South Wales the son of Robert H. M ...
in 1910.
The generic name ''Acanthiza'' derives from
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
''akantheōn'' 'thorn-brake' and ''zaō'' 'to live, inhabit'.
The
specific epithet derives from Latin ''pusillus'' 'very small'.
A 2017 genetic study using both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA found the ancestor of the brown thornbill diverged from that of the
mountain thornbill around 2 million years ago.
Description
The brown thornbill is warm brown to olive-brown above, with flanks of olive-buff to yellowish white. It has buff scallops on the forehead and large dark red eyes. There are blackish streaks on a grey throat and breast, a tawny rump and tail base, and a black subterminal band with paler tips on the tail.
[Pizzey, G. and F. Knight, ''The Field Guide to the Birds of Australia''. 9 ed. 2012, Sydney: Harper Collins. 608]
The brown thornbill ranges in size from , making it relatively small. It typically weighs .
Distribution and habitat
The brown thornbill can be found in the eastern and southeastern parts of
Australia, including
Tasmania
)
, nickname =
, image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdi ...
.
It is usually found within of the coast.
It shares a substantial part of its range with the
inland thornbill on the western slopes of the
Great Dividing Range and the
Mt Lofty Ranges
The Mount Lofty Ranges are a range of mountains in the Australian state of South Australia which for a small part of its length borders the east of Adelaide. The part of the range in the vicinity of Adelaide is called the Adelaide Hills and ...
.
It is also common in the
Blue Mountains.
The subspecies ''A. p. pusilla'' and ''A. p. diemenensis'' have been observed near the
Australian Capital Territory
The Australian Capital Territory (commonly abbreviated as ACT), known as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) until 1938, is a landlocked federal territory of Australia containing the national capital Canberra and some surrounding townships. I ...
and on Tasmania, respectively.
Brown thornbills live at elevations up to . They are found in
dry forest
Dry or dryness most often refers to:
* Lack of rainfall, which may refer to
**Arid regions
**Drought
* Dry or dry area, relating to legal prohibition of selling, serving, or imbibing alcoholic beverages
* Dry humor, deadpan
* Dryness (medical)
* ...
s with dense undergrowth,
rainforests,
shrublands, coastal dune thickets, and in rushes and bracken along rivers and creeks.
[Morcombe, Michael (2012) ''Field Guide to Australian Birds''. Pascal Press, Glebe, NSW. Revised edition. ] They are sedentary and common, except in the drier parts of their range.
Behaviour
Vocalization
Brown thornbills are skilled mimics and also respond to humans imitating their calls. The calls have been described as "rich, musical warble".
Their calls vary from a mellow baritone "pee-orr", high whistles with rapid cascading trills, to many squeaks and churrs.
Adult brown thornbills are able to mimic the alarm calls of other birds such as the
New Holland honeyeater that warn of a raptor approaching, which deters other predators such as
pied currawong
The pied currawong (''Strepera graculina'') is a black passerine bird native to eastern Australia and Lord Howe Island. One of three currawong species in the genus ''Strepera'', it is closely related to the butcherbirds and Australian magpie of ...
s from attacking their nests.
Feeding
The brown thornbill is mainly an
insectivore, including spiders, beetles, lerp insects, ants and grasshoppers in its diet.
However, it may sometimes eat
seed
A seed is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering, along with a food reserve. The formation of the seed is a part of the process of reproduction in seed plants, the spermatophytes, including the gymnosperm and angiospe ...
s,
fruit
In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering.
Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...
, or
nectar.
[Gregory, P. (2020). "Brown Thornbill (Acanthiza pusilla), version 1.0." In ''Birds of the World'' (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. ] It feeds restlessly close to the ground, in lower trees and shrubs of the
understory
In forestry and ecology, understory (American English), or understorey (Commonwealth English), also known as underbrush or undergrowth, includes plant life growing beneath the forest canopy without penetrating it to any great extent, but abo ...
.
It often feeds in groups with other thornbills, except during the
breeding season.
It also forms
mixed-species feeding 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 are ...
s with the
yellow-rumped thornbill
The yellow-rumped thornbill (''Acanthiza chrysorrhoa'') is a species of passerine bird from the genus Acanthiza. The genus was once placed in the family Pardalotidae but that family was split and it is now in the family Acanthizidae. There are f ...
(''Acanthiza chrysorrhoa''), the
white-browed scrubwren
The white-browed scrubwren (''Sericornis frontalis'') is a passerine bird found on the New England Tablelands and coastal areas of Australia. Placed in the family Pardalotidae in the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy, this has met with opposition and in ...
(''Sericornis frontalis''), the
speckled warbler
The speckled warbler (''Pyrrholaemus sagittatus'') is a species of bird in the family Acanthizidae. It is endemic to eastern Australia. Its natural habitat is temperate forests.
Taxonomy
The speckled warbler was first described by English physi ...
(''Pyrrholaemus sagittatus''), and the
eastern yellow robin (''Eopsaltria australis'').
Breeding
Brown thornbill couples tend to pair for a long time. Their nests are dome-shaped with a hooded side-entrance and built out of grasses, bark shreds, moss and feathers or plant down, lightly bound with spider webs, and usually set low in the undergrowth among ferns or tussocks.
A clutch consists of two to four s, with three eggs being the most common. The eggs, measuring , are whitish with red-brown freckles towards the larger rounded end.
They
incubate for 19 days and have a nesting period of 16 days. Their
breeding season extends from July to January.
Conservation
The brown thornbill is widespread with a stable population and classified as
least concern
A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...
on the
IUCN Red List
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...
.
The King Island brown thornbill (''A. p. archibaldi'') is considered to be
critically endangered and most likely to go extinct, with very few sightings for many decades.
[ A 2018 study ranked it first as the Australian bird most likely to go extinct.][PDF]
/ref> However, recent surveys indicate that there may be between 20 and 50 individuals of the subspecies living on the island and consequently a recovery program was expected to be formulated in late 2019.
References
External links
Brown Thornbill Videos, Photos and sounds
on the Internet Bird Collection
Sound recording of Brown Thornbill
on Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is a member-supported unit of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, which studies birds and other wildlife. It is housed in the Imogene Powers Johnson Center for Birds and Biodiversity in Sapsucker Woods Sanctuar ...
's Macaulay Library website
{{Taxonbar, from=Q264390
brown thornbill
Birds of Queensland
Birds of New South Wales
Birds of South Australia
Birds of Victoria (Australia)
Endemic birds of Australia
brown thornbill
Taxa named by George Shaw