Heads up: Some or all of the identifications affected by this split may have been replaced with identifications of Sericornis. This happens when we can't automatically assign an identification to one of the output taxa. Review identifications of Sericornis frontalis 13510

Taxonomic Split 120883 (Committed on 2023-01-25)

The polytypic group White-browed Scrubwren (Spotted) Sericornis frontalis [maculatus Group], with subspecies balstoni, maculatus, mellori, and ashbyi, is elevated to species rank as Spotted Scrubwren Sericornis maculatus, based on patterns of genetic divergence (Norman et al. 2018). Inclusion of subspecies ashbyi in Spotted Scrubwren is provisional; this treatment is consistent with the traditional delineation of these groups (e.g. Mayr 1986) and with patterns of variation in iris color (Cake 2019); but genetic data links ashbyi instead to White-browed Scrubwren (Norman et al. 2018).

Added by birdwhisperer on January 25, 2023 05:48 PM | Committed by birdwhisperer on January 25, 2023
split into

Comments

This should have been more carefully atlased before the split was made. Birds in the southern Mt Lofty Ranges could safely have been retained in S. frontalis. As it is, many have reverted to a genus level ID, unnecessarily and some have been incorrectly swapped into S. maculatus e.g. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/104502443

Posted by rfoster about 1 year ago

@rfoster I don't know how I could've been more careful; I spent a lot of time on this one considering how many sightings there were in the region one species transitions into the other. It seems like the problem is, is that I didn't add Playford to the White-browed Scrubwren atlas, so all sightings in that district was swapped to Spotted Scrubwren instead of swapping to Sericornis. I've checked and that's the only observation that was erroneous swapped, so it's really no big deal, it was going to happen anyway with splits between paraphyletic species.

Posted by birdwhisperer about 1 year ago

The major problem has been the extension of the S. maculatus atlas way too far into the Adelaide region taking in areas such as the Adelaide Hills where only Sericornis frontalis rosinae is found. To compound the problem, some of the S. f. rosinae heartland, such as "Adelaide Hills -Ranges, SA, AU" had been left off the S. frontalis atlas. Assistance with this was available if you'd asked.

Posted by rfoster about 1 year ago

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