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| Phylloscopus rotiensis
Ng, Prawiradilaga, Ng, Suparno, Ashari, Trainor, Verbelen & Rheindt, 2018
photo: Philippe Verbelen
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Abstract
Leaf warblers (Aves; Phylloscopidae) are a diverse clade of insectivorous, canopy-dwelling songbirds widespread across the Old World. The taxonomy of Australasian leaf warblers is particularly complex, with multiple species-level divergences between island taxa in the region requiring further scrutiny. We use a combination of morphology, bioacoustics, and analysis of thousands of genome-wide markers to investigate and describe a new species of Phylloscopus leaf warbler from the island of Rote in the Lesser Sundas, Indonesia. We show that this new Rote Leaf Warbler is morphologically and genomically highly distinct from its congenerics, but do not find vocal differentiation between different island taxa. We discuss the behaviour and ecology of this highly distinctive new species, and make recommendations about its conservation status. We believe this constitutes the first description of a novel bird species that is partly based on insights from massive amounts of genome-wide DNA markers.
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Phylloscopus rotiensis, species nova
English name: Rote Leaf Warbler
Etymology: We name this species after Rote Island, the only locality at which this leaf warbler can be found.
Diagnosis: The new taxon is distinguished from all other Phylloscopus leaf warblers by a proportionately much longer bill.
The Rote Leaf Warbler specimen had a bill length of 16.3 mm, as compared to 13.4 ± 0.1 mm in the Timor Leaf Warbler (n = 2). A comparison of bill length as a proportion of wing length between the Rote and Timor Leaf Warblers indicates that the Rote Leaf Warbler shows a bill to wing length ratio of 0.286, whereas the Timor Leaf Warbler has a bill to wing length ratio of merely 0.248 ± 0.01. The bill of the Rote Leaf Warbler is thus proportionately 15% longer than that of the Timor Leaf Warbler (Fig. 3).
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Nathaniel. S. R. Ng, Dewi. M. Prawiradilaga, Elize. Y. X. Ng, Suparno, Hidayat Ashari, Colin Trainor, Philippe Verbelen and Frank. E. Rheindt. 2018. A Striking New Species of Leaf Warbler from the Lesser Sundas as Uncovered Through Morphology and Genomics. Scientific Reports. 8 (1). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-34101-7
Rote Island, Indonesia sees new songbird news.nus.edu.sg/highlights/rote-island-indonesia-sees-new-songbird
