Xanthotis polygrammus

General description: 

Spotted Honeyeater

Other common names: Spotted Xanthotis, Gray's/Many-spotted Honeyeater

Taxonomy: Ptilotis polygramma G. R. Gray, 1862, Waigeo, West Papuan Islands.

Distinctive, medium small honeyeater with moderately long and slightly decurved bill.

Conservation status: 

Not Threatened

Diagnostic description: 

Distinctive, medium small honeyeater with moderately long and slightly decurved bill. Race lophotis has top  and side of head and neck dark olive-brown, fine white spotting on hind neck, large, fleshy partial orbital ring yellow-orange above eye, merging to pink behind or below eye (or both), or to grey beneath eye, broken at front by blackish lores and bordered below by blackish moustachial stripe that continues across lower  earcoverts,  isolating small patch of pale of pale grey on upper ear-coverts, ear-coverts bordered behind by bold yellow  auricular plume than angles up and back onto side of neck, mantle back and scapulars dark olive-brown, boldly  but irregularly barred or scaled white and overlaid with varying olive-green wash, rump and uppertail-coverts olive-brown to brownish-olive, uppertail olive-brown, slightly greener edges of rectrices, upperwing dark brown to dark olive-brown, small off-white tips on smaller wing-coverts, yellowish-olive fringes and larger off-white tips on greater coverts, fairly broad yellowish-olive outer edges on remiges, chin and throat pale grey, short, narrow, and diffuse blackish malar stripe, underbody cream to pale creamy buff, weak olive tinge at side of breast, and fine olive-brown streaking over upper breast merging into boldly flecked or spotted lower underbody, large bold triangular marks throughout, most densely on lower breast, undertail brownish-grey, olive tinge at edges of rectrices, underwing-coverts white, merging to buff across bases of remiges and with silverly grey-brown trailing edge and tip, iris brown to black, bill black. Sexes alike in plumage, male larger than female. Juvenile is like adult, but auricular plume pair, sometimes washed grey mantle, back, and parts less boldly spotted, gape  yellow and more prominent in adult.

Size: 

15-17 cm, male 19.5-23.5 g and female 18-19.5 g (lophotis), 19 g and 25 g (poikilosternos), one male 20 g (kuehni)

Phylogeny: 

Taxonomy: Ptilotis polygramma G. R. Gray, 1862, Waigeo, West Papuan Islands.  Genus formerly subsumed in Meliphaga by some authors. Six subspecies recognized.

(source: Handbook of the Birds of World)

Distribution: 

Subspecies and Distribution:

    Habitat: 

    Lowlands, foothills and lower montane primary rainforest, foothill monsoon forest, secondary growth, dense  savanna. Sealevel to c 1500 m mainly in foothills and lower mountains, nut commonly in lowlands.

    Trophic strategy: 

    Primarily insectivorous, also takes nectar and fruit, including figs. Forages mainly in canopy to lower middle  storey, as well as in understorey.

    Reproduction: 

    Single recors in Mar, and indirect evidence of breeding in Sept, Oct and Jan.

    Scratchpads developed and conceived by (alphabetical): Ed Baker, Katherine Bouton Alice Heaton Dimitris Koureas, Laurence Livermore, Dave Roberts, Simon Rycroft, Ben Scott, Vince Smith