Systematics of the avian genus Emberizoides (Emberizidae). American Museum novitates ; no. 2740

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Date

1982

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New York, N.Y. : American Museum of Natural History

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Abstract

"The genus Emberizoides has long been maintained as monotypic, but with one polytypic species, E. herbicola. The late Argentine ornithologist William Partridge discriminated between large and small forms found together in Argentina, but his illness and untimely death prevented him from writing up the results of his observations. We studied Partrdige's specimens and others available from various museums and found that the 'small' and 'large' forms are broadly sympatric in eastern Paraguay, southern Brazil, and northeastern Argentina; they differ in various measurements, in dorsal and ventral markings and pattern, in color of the face, bill shape, and size of the legs and toes. The available name for the small form, a sibling species of large Emberizoides herbicola, is E. ypiranganus von Ihering and von Ihering, named by them as a subspecies of E. herbicola. Vocal and ecological data are limited but indicate that these species of Emberizoides have markedly different songs, that at least E. herbicola does not react to the song of E. ypiranganus, and that ypiranganus favors wetter marsh grass habitats than does herbicola. Extensions of these results with morphological studies of the other taxa included in Emberizoides strongly suggest that the Duida Mountain, Venezuela, form E. (herbicola) duidae, differs at least as much from races of E. herbicola as does E. ypiranganus, and especially from the subspecies E. herbicola sphenurus of the lowlands surrounding Duida Mountain. Northern races (the sphenurus group) of E. herbicola are divergent otherwise from the nominate southern race, but not to the extent of E. duidae and and E. ypiranganus. The song of the most divergent race, apurensis, of the sphenurus group, is recognizably like that of E. h. herbicola, São Paulo birds of which respond to it, and this group is best kept within the species E. herbicola. The genus Embernagra is closely similar to Emberizoides in plumage, and in structure, and may prove congeneric with it. Three species, monotypic Emberizoides duidae, polytypic E. herbicola, and monotypic E. ypiranganus thus seem seperable within Emberizoides. Factors involved in their evolutionary jistory are mentioned"--P. [1].

Description

21 p. : ill. ; 26 cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 21).

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