Acanthiza murina De Vis, 1897

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.