The pictorella mannikin, pictorella munia, or pictorella finch (''Heteromunia pectoralis'') is small brown and grey

finch The true finches are small to medium-sized passerine birds in the family Fringillidae. Finches have stout conical bills adapted for eating seeds and nuts and often have colourful plumage. They occupy a great range of habitats where they are usua ...

with a grey

bill Bill(s) may refer to: Common meanings * Banknote, paper cash (especially in the United States) * Bill (law), a proposed law put before a legislature * Invoice, commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer * Bill, a bird or animal's beak Plac ...

and distinctive scaly white breast plate which 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 ...

to northern

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 ...

. It is a seed-eater found in pairs and small flocks in dry

savannah A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the Canopy (forest), canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to rea ...

and subtropical or tropical dry lowland

grassland A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominated by grasses (Poaceae). However, sedge (Cyperaceae) and rush (Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes, like clover, and other herbs. Grasslands occur natur ...

Description

The pictorella mannikin is a grey-billed, buff-brown and grey finch with a distinctive white scaly breast and black face disc. Small white tips on its

wing A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is expres ...

coverts A covert feather or tectrix on a bird is one of a set of feathers, called coverts (or ''tectrices''), which, as the name implies, cover other feathers. The coverts help to smooth airflow over the wings and tail. Ear coverts The ear coverts are sm ...

"impart a jewel-like appearance". The bird has a maximum size of 120mm, with a

wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingspan of ...

of 56-63mm, a bill of 12-14mm and weighs between 13 to 15 grams.

Taxonomy and systematics

Scientific name

The species was originally named ''Amadina pectoralis''

Gould Gould may refer to: People * Gould (name), a surname Places United States * Gould, Arkansas, a city * Gould, Colorado, an unincorporated community * Gould, Ohio, an unincorporated community * Gould, Oklahoma, a town * Gould, West Virginia, a ...

, J. 1841 although later converted to ''Heteromunia pectoralis'' Mathews, 1913. It belongs to the

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

''Heteromunia and the

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

Estrildidae Estrildidae, or estrildid finches, is a family of small seed-eating passerine birds of the Old World tropics and Australasia. They comprise species commonly known as munias, mannikins, firefinches, parrotfinches and waxbills. Despite the word "fi ...

.'' Holotypes held in the

Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, formerly the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, is the oldest natural science research institution and museum in the Americas. It was founded in 1812, by many of the leading natura ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

are

Lectotype In biology, a type is a particular specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to anchor or centralizes the ...

ANSP 14546, an adult a male from the north-west coast of Australia and

Paralectotype In biology, a type is a particular specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to anchor or centralizes th ...

ANSP 14547, an adult female from the north-west coast of Australia. Full classification is listed by the

Atlas of Living Australia The Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) is an online repository of information about Australian plants, animals, and fungi. Development started in 2006. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is an organisation sign ...

. The genus name, ''Heteromunia'' infers "different from munia" from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

''heteros'' meaning different and the common name ''munia''. Munia is a common name used in Asia for many finches, perhaps derived from a

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

word for seed eating birds. ''Pectoralis'' derives from the Latin ''pectoris'' for the breast but also evoking the

Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligib ...

word ''pectorale'' meaning breastplate which reflects the white scalloped bib on this bird.

Common name

The common name used in Australia is pictorella mannikin. Gould used the name white-breasted finch in his

Birds of Australia Australia and its offshore islands and territories have 898 recorded bird species as of 2014. Of the recorded birds, 165 are considered vagrant or accidental visitors, of the remainder over 45% are classified as Australian endemics: found nowhe ...

(1848) and it was the common name until 1926 when the

Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union The Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (RAOU), now part of BirdLife Australia, was Australia's largest non-government, non-profit, bird conservation organisation. It was founded in 1901 to promote the study and bird conservation, conservati ...

(RAOU) Official checklist declared the common name to be pectorella mannikin with no explanation. The name mannikin is from the

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

''manneken'', a diminutive of man. There is no clarity as to why this has been applied to birds in general and particularly to grass eating finches. In 1978 the RAOU checklist committee recommended using "mannikin" for the Australian ''

Lonchura ''Lonchura'' is a genus of the estrildid finch family, and includes munias (or minias) and mannikins. They are seedeating birds that are found in South Asia from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka east to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and the Philippine ...

'' species.

Behaviour and ecology

Pictorella mannikins forage on the ground in small

flocks Flocking is the behaviour exhibited when a group of birds, called a flock, are foraging or in flight. Computer simulations and mathematical models that have been developed to emulate the flocking behaviours of birds can also generally be applie ...

or pairs on seeding native grasses and sometimes take small

invertebrates Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

. Flocks aggregate around inland water sources particularly at the end of the dry season but disperse away from permanent water when rain falls. In northern Australia they often forage on recently burnt ground, open grassy woodland and fringes of wetland. They are relatively short tailed with an upright stance. Pictorella mannikin pairs mate for life and lay 4 to 6 white or bluish white eggs in a dome-shaped grass nest in long grass or low bush. In 2016 the pictorella mannikin's

conservation status The conservation status of a group of organisms (for instance, a species) indicates whether the group still exists and how likely the group is to become extinct in the near future. Many factors are taken into account when assessing conservation ...

was listed Least Concern (LC) 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 ...

although the population is marked as decreasing. In 2007, the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

downgraded its assessment of the species from

Near Threatened A near-threatened species is a species which has been categorized as "Near Threatened" (NT) by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as that may be vulnerable to endangerment in the near future, but it does not currently qualify fo ...

(NT) to

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 ...

(LC) after large flocks of this species were found at several locations. In th
Northern Territory
and Western Australia the bird's conservation status is listed as Near Threatened (NT) while in Queensland th
conservation status
listing is Least Concern (LC).

Gallery

File:Naturalis Biodiversity Center - RMNH.AVES.161278 1 - Lonchura pectoralis (Gould, 1841) - Estrildidae - bird skin specimen.jpeg, Pictorella mannikin

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q997562

pictorella mannikin The pictorella mannikin, pictorella munia, or pictorella finch (''Heteromunia pectoralis'') is small brown and grey finch with a grey bill and distinctive scaly white breast plate which is endemic to northern Australia. It is a seed-eater found ...

Birds of Western Australia Birds of the Northern Territory Birds of Queensland Endemic birds of Australia

Taxonomy articles created by Polbot