The Socotra golden-winged grosbeak or Socotra grosbeak (''Rhynchostruthus socotranus'') is a

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 ...

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 ...

Socotra Socotra or Soqotra (; ar, سُقُطْرَىٰ ; so, Suqadara) is an island of the Republic of Yemen in the Indian Ocean, under the ''de facto'' control of the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council, a secessionist participant in Yemen’ ...

, an island in the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...

off the coast of

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...

. ''R. socotranus'' is by some authorities held to be the only

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

of the then-

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 "unispe ...

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

'' Rhynchostruthus'', including all other

golden-winged grosbeak The genus ''Rhynchostruthus'' is a small group of finches in the family Fringillinae. Commonly known as golden-winged grosbeaks, they are attractive, chunky, medium-sized, robust-billed songbirds restricted to the southern Arabian and northern So ...

s therein as subspecies. But in recent times the three populations are usually considered a distinct

, with ''R. socotranus'' being limited to the Socotra population, the Arabian golden-winged grosbeak becoming ''R. percivali'', and the Somali golden-winged grosbeak ''R. louisae''.

Description

The males are grey-brown overall with a black bill, a dark head with a black mask, large white cheek patches, and large, bright yellow patches on the wings and tail. The females are similar to the males though somewhat duller, and the juveniles are rather streaky and lack the adults' distinctive head pattern.

Ecology and status

The Socotra golden-winged grosbeak is found in a variety of

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 from the mountains to sea-level. It typically inhabits fairly

arid A region is arid when it severely lacks available water, to the extent of hindering or preventing the growth and development of plant and animal life. Regions with arid climates tend to lack vegetation and are called xeric or desertic. Most ...

scrub- or

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (se ...

dominated by

spurge ''Euphorbia'' is a very large and diverse genus of flowering plants, commonly called spurge, in the family Euphorbiaceae. "Euphorbia" is sometimes used in ordinary English to collectively refer to all members of Euphorbiaceae (in deference to t ...

s (''Euphorbia''), acacias (''Acacia'') and juniper (''Juniperus''). The fruits of these plants appear to form the bulk of its diet. The population is estimated to be about 6500 adult individuals. Despite being limited to a single island, its future appears to be rather secure. Consequently, the IUCN still classifies it as a species of

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 ...

, even after the mainland populations have been split off.BLI (2004, 2008)

Footnotes

References

* BirdLife International (BLI) (2008
Socotra Grosbeak Species Factsheet
Retrieved 2008-MAY-27. * Kirwan, G.M. & Grieve, A. (2007)
Studies of Socotran birds II. One, two or three species: towards a rational taxonomy for the Golden-winged Grosbeak ''Rhynchostruthus socotranus''.
''Bulletin of the African Bird Club'' 14(2): 159–169.

External links

Retrieved 27 May 2008 {{Taxonbar, from=Q130259 Rhynchostruthus Finches Grosbeaks Endemic birds of Socotra Birds described in 1881 Taxa named by Philip Sclater