The Réunion stonechat (''Saxicola tectes'') is a species of stonechat,

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 else ...

to the island of Réunion. This small

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 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 lightweig ...

is common in clearings and open mountain bushlands there up to 2600 metres above the sea level, including in the plains around Piton de la Fournaise.

Description

Overall, the male is black above and white below, but also with a white supercilium (sometimes absent), half-collar, and greater covert patch, and a variable-sized orange patch on the breast. Females differ from males in being browner above, more buff-toned below, and often lacking the white greater covert patch. The white throat and (usually white) supercilium are the most prominent external differences from the

African stonechat The African stonechat or common stonechat (''Saxicola torquatus'') is a species of the Old World flycatcher family (Muscicapidae), inhabiting sub-Saharan Africa and adjacent regions. Like the other chats, it was long assigned to the thrush f ...

''S. torquatus'', which has a wholly black head including the throat and supercilium.Urquhart, E., & Bowley, A. (2002): ''Stonechats. A Guide to the Genus Saxicola''.

Christopher Helm Christopher Alexander Roger Helm (born Dundee, 1 February 1937 – 20 January 2007) was a Scottish book publisher, notably of ornithology related titles, including the '' Helm Identification Guides''. Born in Dundee, he was raised in Forfar ...

, London.

Taxonomy and etymology

It is a member of the common stonechat superspecies, but it is distinct, together with its closest relative the

Madagascar stonechat The Madagascar stonechat (''Saxicola sibilla'') is a species of stonechat, endemic to Madagascar. It is a small bird, closely similar to the African stonechat in both plumage and behaviour, but distinguished from it by the more extensive black o ...

''S. sibilla'' being insular derivatives of the African stonechat.Woog, F., Wink, M., Rastegar-Pouyani, E., Gonzalez, J., & Helm, B. (2008). Distinct taxonomic position of the Madagascar stonechat (''Saxicola torquatus sibilla'') revealed by nucleotide sequences of mitochondrial DNA. ''J. Ornithol''. 149: 423–430
Full text
/ref> Its ancestors probably diverged from the sub-Saharan African lineage as it spread across the continent some 2–2.5 mya during the

Late Pliocene Late may refer to: * LATE, an acronym which could stand for: ** Limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy, a proposed form of dementia ** Local-authority trading enterprise, a New Zealand business law ** Local average treatment effect, ...

.Wink, M.; Sauer-Gürth, H. & Gwinner, E. (2002): Evolutionary relationships of stonechats and related species inferred from mitochondrial-DNA sequences and genomic fingerprinting. '' British Birds'' 95: 349-355
PDF fulltext
/ref> The

etymology Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the Phonological chan ...

of the scientific name is from ''Saxicola'', "rock-dweller", from

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 ...

''saxum'', a rock + ''incola'', dwelling in; and ''tectes'',

onomatopoetic Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', ''m ...

New Latin New Latin (also called Neo-Latin or Modern Latin) is the revival of Literary Latin used in original, scholarly, and scientific works since about 1500. Modern scholarly and technical nomenclature, such as in zoological and botanical taxonomy ...

after the species' call, from the

Réunion Creole Réunion Creole, or Reunionese Creole ( rcf, kréol rénioné; french: créole réunionnais), is a French-based creole language spoken on Réunion. It is derived mainly from French and includes terms from Malagasy, Hindi, Portuguese, Gujarat ...

name ''tec-tec''.

References

External links

Xeno-canto: audio recordings of the Réunion stonechat
Saxicola Birds described in 1789 Taxa named by Johann Friedrich Gmelin Birds of Réunion {{Muscicapidae-stub