Cettia

The island endemic forms of the SW Pacific formed a subclade within Cettia, thereby supporting Orenstein & Pratt’s (1983) contention that this was probably the case.

Archive 2006-05-01 Darren Naish 2006

Cettia, the bush warbler genus, is represented by 14 species, most of which live in SE Asia, but there are also several species that inhabit the islands of the SW Pacific.

Archive 2006-05-01 Darren Naish 2006

A new species of bush-warbler from Bougainville Island and a monophyletic origin of southwest Pacifc Cettia.

Archive 2006-05-01 Darren Naish 2006

Description of a new species of bush warbler of the genus Cettia Bonaparte, 1834 (Aves: Sylviidae) from Yamdena, Tanimbar Islands, Indonesia.

Archive 2006-05-01 Darren Naish 2006

Bush warblers are particularly newsworthy right now (to my mind at any rate) given that the just-published oscine supertree of Jønsson & Fjeldså (2006) found Cettia to be diphyletic, with C. cetti grouping with the tesias* and Urosphena (the stubtails) while the Japanese bush warbler C. diphone grouped with the Broad-billed flycatcher-warbler Tickellia hodgsoni and Orthotomus (the tailorbirds).

Archive 2006-05-01 Darren Naish 2006

Results contrary to those of Jønsson & Fjeldså (2006) were found by LeCroy & Barker (2006): based on cytochrome b sequences, they found Cettia to be monophyletic, with C. cetti as a basal member of the clade and stubtails as the sister-group.

Archive 2006-05-01 Darren Naish 2006

In March of this year Mary LeCroy and F. Keith Barker published their description of the Odedi Cettia haddeni, a bush warbler from Bougainville Island of the North Solomons Province in the SW Pacific (LeCroy & Barker 2006).

Archive 2006-05-01 Darren Naish 2006

People here don’t ordinarily call it ‘Cetti’s bush warbler’, but they do elsewhere in the world (in India for example, where it’s but one of eight Cettia species).

Archive 2006-05-01 Darren Naish 2006

Beehler (who I’d say is best known for his work on birds-of-paradise) published a brief paper on the bird in 1983 and thought it most likely that it was a species of Vitia (Beehler 1983), a genus regarded nowadays as synonymous with Cettia (Orenstein & Pratt 1983).

Archive 2006-05-01 Darren Naish 2006

We have one member of the genus here in Europe: Cetti’s warbler Cettia cetti (though it’s not a European endemic, as it also occurs across Asia).

Archive 2006-05-01 Darren Naish 2006