Swinhoe's white-eye (''Zosterops simplex'') is a bird species in the white-eye family Zosteropidae. It is found in east China, Taiwan, north Vietnam, the Thai-Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Borneo.

Taxonomy

Swinhoe's white-eye was formally described in 1861 by the English naturalist

Robert Swinhoe Robert Swinhoe FRS (1 September 1836 – 28 October 1877) was an English diplomat and naturalist who worked as a Consul in Formosa. He catalogued many Southeast Asian birds, and several, such as Swinhoe's pheasant, are named after him. Bio ...

and given the

binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

''Zosterops simplex''. The genus '' Zosterops'' had been introduced by the naturalists

Nicholas Vigors Nicholas Aylward Vigors (1785 – 26 October 1840) was an Irish zoologist and politician. He popularized the classification of birds on the basis of the quinarian system. Early life Vigors was born at Old Leighlin, County Carlow on 1785 as fi ...

and Thomas Horsfield in 1827. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek words ''zōstēros'' meaning "belt" or "girdle" and ''ōpos'' meaning "eye". The specific epithet ''simplex'' is Latin meaning "simple" or "plain". This species was formerly treated as a

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...

group of the warbling white-eye (''Zosterops japonicus'') but based on the results of a

molecular phylogenetic Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...

study published in 2018, it was promoted to species rank. Five

are recognised: * ''Z. s. simplex'' R. Swinhoe, 1861 – east China, Taiwan and extreme northeast Vietnam * ''Z. s. hainanus'' Hartert, 1923 – Hainan (off southeast China) * ''Z. s. erwini'' (

Chasen ChaSen is a morphological parser for the Japanese language. This tool for analyzing morphemes was developed at the Matsumoto laboratory, Nara Institute of Science and Technology. See also * MeCab MeCab is an open-source text segmentation lib ...

, 1935) – coastal Thai-Malay Peninsula, lowland Sumatra, Riau Islands, Bangka Island, Natuna Islands and lowland west Borneo * ''Z. s. williamsoni'' Robinson & Kloss, 1919 –

Gulf of Thailand The Gulf of Thailand, also known as the Gulf of Siam, is a shallow inlet in the southwestern South China Sea, bounded between the southwestern shores of the Indochinese Peninsula and the northern half of the Malay Peninsula. It is around in l ...

coast and west Cambodia * ''Z. s. salvadorii'' Meyer, AB & Wiglesworth, 1894 – Enggano Island (west Sumatra)

References

{{Taxonbar , from=Q40660989 Swinhoe's white-eye Birds of East Asia Birds of Southeast Asia Swinhoe's white-eye