Zapa hammer

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Zapa hammer
Zapata Sparrow 2495242351.jpg

Zapataammer ( Torreornis inexpectata )

Systematics
Order : Passerines (Passeriformes)
Subordination : Songbirds (passeri)
Superfamily : Passeroidea
Family : New World Chambers (Passerellidae)
Genre : Torrent
Type : Zapa hammer
Scientific name of the  genus
Torrent
Barbour & JL Peters , 1927
Scientific name of the  species
Torreornis inexpectata
Barbour & JL Peters, 1927

The zapa bammer ( Torreornis inexpectata ) is a monotypical species of bird from the family of the New World chambers (Passerellidae). The range of this endemic species is limited to three small areas on the Caribbean island of Cuba . It is used by the IUCN as endangered ( Endangered ) classified.

features

The round Zapataammer reaches a body length of about 16.5 centimeters. It has extremely short wings. The underside is yellow, with a dark streak of beard running through the white throat . Between the white of the throat and the yellow underside is a fuzzy gray dividing band. A line above the rein and a line of beard below the cheeks are white. The crown is dark red to brown. The rest of the top is olive gray.

Young birds are generally darker and do not have a red-brown crown.

distribution and habitat

The nominate form lives in the bushes of extensive grasslands. The subspecies T. i. varonai occurs in deciduous forests, coastal xerophytic thorn bushes and in mangrove forests . Finally, the subspecies T. i. sigmani in the dry undergrowth of an area dominated by columnar cacti.

behavior

The Zapataammers are usually seen in pairs or in groups of three. Occasionally it also happens that they are in larger groups of ten to twelve animals. Their diet mainly includes seeds, berries and flowers. In the rainy season they also feed on insects, spiders, snails (e.g. Florida apple snail ( Pomacea paludosa )) and their eggs and even on smaller lizards that they find in bushes up to two meters in size and on the ground. T. i. sigmani seems to be dependent on the seeds of the Tournefortia gnaphalodes, which belong to the predatory leaf family . They build their nests out of grass tufts, as the cutting part of Cladium jamaicense . Here they lay two to four blue-white eggs. The breeding season is from March to June. The song of the subspecies T. i. inexpectata and T. i. sigmani is clearly different, while T. i. varonai no reliable data and analyzes are available. The flight seems more strenuous, with quick thrusts and wing beats. They rarely fly far.

Subspecies

Three subspecies are described, which differ mainly in their coloration and in their habitat requirements mentioned above. Their small areas of distribution are far from each other:

  • Torreornis inexpectata inexpectata Barbour & Peters , 1927 - nominate form, occurs only in the Zapata swamp from which it is named.
  • Torreornis inexpectata sigmani Spence & Smith , 1961 Slightly smaller than the nominate form, this is especially true for the beak. The red of the crown is less intense. They have less gray on the chest and flanks. The chest and belly are lighter colored lemon. The back stripes are very blurry. Occurs only in a very small strip on the southeast coast of Guantánamo .
  • Torreornis inexpectata varonai Regalado Ruiz , 1981 - This subspecies is very similar to the nominate form, but has a much clearer eye streak (white line above the reins). Distribution only in a very limited area on Cayo Coco , part of the Camagüey Archipelago.

Systematics

The monotypic genus Torreornis is morphologically close to the genus Aimophila ( Swainson , 1837 Dabbene-bunting ( Aimophila strigiceps ), Stolz man-bunting ( Aimophila proud Manni ), rust apex Bunting ( Aimophila ruficeps ) Oaxacaammer ( Aimophila notosticta )) is used. They too usually have a reddish crown and a black streak of beard.

The ornithologist George John Wallace (1907-1986) said in a personal comment that it's behavior and the contour of Zapatammer rather of the genus Zonotrichia (Swainson, 1832) ( white-crowned sparrow ( Zonotrichia leucophrys ), White-throated Sparrow ( Zonotrichia albicollis ), rufous-collared sparrow ( Zonotrichia capensis ), crown chamber ( Zonotrichia atricapilla ), Harris's bunting ( Zonotrichia querula )). The genus Pipilo ( Vieillot , 1816) also seems to be similar in behavior to the Zapataammer.

Research history and etymology

The first Zapata bammer known to science was collected in March 1927 by the Spanish zoologist Fermín Zanón Cervera (1875–1944) in the Zapata marshland in the south of the Matanzas province . Cervera, who accompanied Thomas Barbour on an expedition to the northeast of the Zapata swamp, was sent back into the swamp by the latter when he heard rumors about strange birds in the area. As a result, he brought three previously unknown bellows with him from his tour: the Kubazwönig , the Zapataammer and the Kubaralle . Barbour and James Lee Peters together described the Zapataammer and the Kubaralle in their article Two more remarkable new birds from Cuba in the journal Proceedings of the New England Zoological Club . Barbour had already described the Cuban Wren a year earlier, in 1926. In the summer of 1959, Dr. Albert Schwartz and Ronald Francis Klinikowski sent on a collector's excursion to Cuba. As a herpetologist, Schwartz was supposed to conduct studies on Cuba and the Pine Island with funding from the National Science Foundation . In addition, he collected some Cuban birds for the Reading Public Museum in Reading . On August 20, 1959, he collected two bellows from the Zapataammer on the south coast of the Oriente province , which were later typified as a new subspecies sigmani . The first description was taken over by Matthew J. Spence and Barton L. Smith in The Auk in their article A Subspecies of Torreornis inexpectata from Cuba . Only in the mid-1970s was another subspecies T. i. varonai was discovered and described in 1981 by the Cuban biologist Pedro Regalado Ruiz. It was somewhat unclear in which journal or when exactly this subspecies was described, as James Bond cited another source in Twenty-fourth Supplement to a Checklist of the Birds of the West Indies . More recent findings assume that Bond's source does not correspond to the original publication.

The generic name Torreornis was used by the first authors in honor of an old friend, the Cuban naturalist Carlos de la Torre y de la Huerta (1858–1950), and was combined with the Greek word "ornis" for "bird". The specific epithet is derived from the Latin »inexpectatus« and means »unexpected«. The "sigmani" is a tribute to the conservationist and amateur ornithologist Arthur Tucker Sigma from Elverson , Pennsylvania . The use of the name »varonai« is said to honor the Cuban independence fighter Enrique José Varona (1849–1933).

After the discovery of the two new subspecies, the known distribution of the species was no longer limited to the Zapata swamp. Therefore there were proposals to rename the species to Kubaammer.

Protection status

Fires and the cutting of the grass as well as the drying out of the Zapata swamp endanger the existence of the nominate form. The so far relatively stable population is estimated at around 250 birds.

The burning down of the ecosystem and the constant expansion of pastureland for sheep breeding endanger the continued existence of the T. i subspecies . sigmani . While the population was previously estimated at 100 to 200 animals, their range seems to be somewhat larger. The population of this subspecies is estimated at 600 to 700 birds today.

The Cayo Coco area is currently being developed for tourism. The effects on the ecosystem from additional human disturbance are uncertain. At the moment a relatively large number of zapa chambers of the T. i subspecies live here . varonai .

literature

  • Clive Byers, Urban Olsson, Jon Curson: Sparrows and Buntings: A Guide to the Sparrows and Buntings of North America and the World . Houghton Mifflin, New York 1996, ISBN 978-0-395-73873-3 .
  • James Bond: A Field Guide to the Birds of the West Indies . Houghton Mifflin, New York 1999, ISBN 978-0-618-00210-8 .
  • Herbert A. Raffaele: Birds of the West Indies . Princeton University Press, Princeton 2003, ISBN 978-0-691-11319-7 .
  • James A. Jobling: Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names . Christopher Helm, London 2010, ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4 .
  • Matthew J. Spence, Barton L. Smith: A Subspecies of Torreornis inexpectata from Cuba . In: The Auk . tape 78 , no. 1 , 1961, pp. 95–97 ( online (PDF; 198 kB) [accessed on November 27, 2012]).
  • Thomas Barbour: Notes on three Cuban birds (with picture by Allan Cyril Brooks ) . In: The Auk . tape 45 , no. 1 , 1928, pp. 28–32 ( online (PDF; 384 kB) [accessed on November 27, 2012]).
  • Thomas Barbour: A naturalist in Cuba . Little, Brown and Company, Boston 1945.
  • Thomas Barbour, James Lee Peters: Two more remarkable new birds from Cuba . In: Proceedings of the New England Zoological Club . tape 9 , 1927, pp. 433-446 .
  • Pedro Regalado Ruiz: El genero Torreornis (Aves, Fringillidae), description de una nueva subespecie en Cayo Coco, Cuba . In: Centro Agricola . tape 8 , 1981, p. 87-112 .
  • James Bond: Twenty-fourth supplement to the Check-list of birds of the West Indies , Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1982
  • Eugene S. Morton, Hirma J. Gonzalez Alonso: The biology of Torreornis inexpecta i. A comparison of vocalization in Ti inexpectata and T. i. sigmani . In: The Willson Bulletin . tape 94 , no. 4 , 1982, pp. 433–446 ( online (PDF; 788 kB) [accessed on November 27, 2012]).
  • Donald William Buden, Storrs Lovejoy Olson: The Avifauna of the Cayerias of south Cuba, with the Ornithological Results of the Paul Bartsch Expedition of 1930 . In: Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology . No. 477 , 1989 ( online (PDF; 2.2 MB) [accessed on November 28, 2012]).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Herbert Raffaele et al .: Zapata Sparrow. In: Birds of the West Indies. Princeton University Press, 2003, pp. 192-193 , accessed February 7, 2011 .
  2. ↑ BirdLife International Cuban Sparrow Torreornis inexpectata (Engl.)
  3. ↑ a b Willson Bulletin, Vol 94, No. 4, 1982 The biology of Torreornis inexpecta i. A comparison of vocalization in Ti inexpectata and T. i. sigmani (English; PDF; 788 kB) Original article
  4. ^ IOC Wold Bird List 3.3 Buntings to Bush Tanagers ( Memento from October 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ a b Matthew J. Spence, u. a., p. 95
  6. ↑ The Auk, Vol 61, No. 4, 1944 Thomas Barbour, 1884–1946 (English; PDF; 451 kB) Original article
  7. ↑ Donald W. Buden, Storrs L. Olson, Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology, No 477 The Avifauna of the Cayerias of south Cuba, with the Ornithological Results of the Paul Bartsch Expedition of 1930 (PDF; 2.2 MB)
  8. ↑ James A. Jobling, p. 388
  9. ↑ James A. Jobling, p. 204
  10. ^ Matthew J. Spence, et al. a., p. 96

Web links

Commons : Torreornis inexpectata  - Collection of images, videos and audio files