Papuan Thornbill
Other common names: Bar-tailed/De Vis’s Thornbill, New Guinea (Mountain) Thornbill, De Vis’s Tree-warbler
Taxonomy: Gerygone murina De Vis, 1897, Mount Scratchley, 12,200 feet [c. 3720 m], south-east New Guinea. Has similarities with A. katherina; suggestions that the two species evolved from a common ancestor in New Guinea needs
to be tested by genetic analysis. Monotypic.
Small, pale-eyed drab thornbill. Head and upperparts are brownish-olive, forehead indistinctly mottled lighter (feathers having dark tips and pale bases); cheek and side of throat mottled light (salt-and-pepper effect), often quite dark-looking lores and ear-coverts; remiges edged pale, with darker centres of tertials; tail with broad blackish subterminal band and pale greyish to whitish tip; dingy pale greyish below, sometimes with buffy wash on underparts; iris whitish to yellowish; bill black or dark brown, pale base of lower madible; legs variably black, dark brown or light brown, sometimes with yellow on soles.
Sexes alike.
Juvenile undescribed.
9 – 10 cm
Taxonomy: Gerygone murina De Vis, 1897, Mount Scratchley, 12,200 feet [c. 3720 m], south-east New Guinea. Has similarities with A. katherina; suggestions that the two species evolved from a common ancestor in New Guinea needs to be tested by genetic analysis. Monotypic. (source: Handbook of the Birds of World)
Mountains of New Guinea from Snow Mts E to Owen Stanley Range
High-altitude montane forest and forest edge, rarely as low as c.1930 m, and commonest above 2500 m and to timber-line; one of the passerines living at highest elevation in New Guinea.
Primarily insectivorous; will visit flowering trees, but uncertain whether for insects or to exploit nectar. Seeds, fruit and flowers found in gizzard. Active feeder in flocks of 3 – 10 individuals, or i parties of five or six; sometimes seen in presumed pairs. Flocks may occupy adjacent trees and call constantlywhile foraging, often associating with Sericornis nouhuysi or Sericornis papuensis. Feeds from canopy down to c. 4 – 5 m, and seen neither on ground nor in shrub layer; rather like A. katherina in habits. Gleans from foliage and small twigs, sometimes on larger branches, moving systematically from one tree to the next.
Largely unknown. Nest domed, with side entrance, located in forest tree; two young in Oct were fed by three adults, which suggests that co-operative breeding strategy may sometimes be used. No other information.