The Eurasian penduline tit or European penduline tit (''Remiz pendulinus'') is a

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped') which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines generally have an anisodactyl arrangement of their ...

bird of the

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

Remiz ''Remiz'' is a genus of bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high ...

''. It is relatively widespread throughout the western

Palearctic The Palearctic or Palaearctic is a biogeographic realm of the Earth, the largest of eight. Confined almost entirely to the Eastern Hemisphere, it stretches across Europe and Asia, north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa. Th ...

. It is migratory in the northern part of its range but resident in the southern part. The breeding range in Western Europe experienced an expansion during the 1980s and 1990s. This was accompanied by an expansion of the species’ winter range and reached as far south as northern Morocco. It builds an elaborate hanging nest, formerly used in

Central Europe Central Europe is a geographical region of Europe between Eastern Europe, Eastern, Southern Europe, Southern, Western Europe, Western and Northern Europe, Northern Europe. Central Europe is known for its cultural diversity; however, countries in ...

as children's slippers.

Taxonomy

The Eurasian penduline tit was

formally described A species description is a formal scientific description of a newly encountered species, typically articulated through a scientific publication. Its purpose is to provide a clear description of a new species of organism and explain how it differ ...

by the Swedish naturalist

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

in 1758 in the

tenth edition Tenth may refer to: Numbers * 10th, the ordinal form of the number ten * One tenth, , or 0.1, a fraction, one part of a unit divided equally into ten parts. ** the SI prefix deci- ** tithe, a one-tenth part of something * 1/10 of any unit of me ...

of his ''

Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the Orthographic ligature, ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Sweden, Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the syste ...

'' under the

binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, altho ...

''Motacilla pedulinus''. It is now placed in the

'' that was introduced in 1819 by the Polish zoologist

Feliks Paweł Jarocki Feliks Paweł Jarocki (Pacanów, 14 January 1790 – 25 March 1865, Warsaw) was a Polish zoologist and entomologist. Life Jarocki was a Doctor of Liberal Arts and Philosophy. He organized and managed the Zoological Cabinet of the Royal Univers ...

. The genus name ''Remiz'' is the Polish word for the Eurasian penduline tit. The specific epithet is from Latin ''pendulus'' meaning "pendant" or "hanging down", referring to the nest. Four

subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

are recognised: * ''R. p. pendulinus'' (Linnaeus, 1758) – Europe to the

Ural Mountains The Ural Mountains ( ),; , ; , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range in Eurasia that runs north–south mostly through Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the river Ural (river), Ural and northwestern Kazakhstan.

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...

and west Turkey * ''R. p. menzbieri'' ( Zarudny, 1913) – south, east Turkey and Syria to

Armenia Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...

and northwest Iran * ''R. p. caspius'' (Peltzam, 1870) – southwest Russia and northwest

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

* ''R. p. jaxarticus'' ( Severtzov, 1873) – east Ural Mountains to west Siberia and north Kazakhstan

Description

This is a small tit, in length with a finely pointed bill and a relatively long tail. The head is light grey with a black "mask" through the eye. The back is chestnut brown. The sexes are very similar in appearance, but the male has a broader mask and a more rufous back.

Behaviour

Breeding

The eggs are laid from end of April to the beginning of July. The nest is suspended from thin long branches of trees such as willow (''

Salix Willows, also called sallows and osiers, of the genus ''Salix'', comprise around 350 species (plus numerous hybrids) of typically deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist soils in cold and temperate regions. Most species are known ...

''), elm (''

Ulmus Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the genus ''Ulmus'' in the family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical- montane regions of North America and Eurasia, ...

'') or birch (''

Betula A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech- oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains 3 ...

''), often over water. The nest can also sometimes be suspended between two or three reeds (''

Typha ''Typha'' is a genus of about 30 species of monocotyledonous flowering plants in the family Typhaceae. These plants have a variety of common names, in British English as bulrushStreeter D, Hart-Davies C, Hardcastle A, Cole F, Harper L. 2009. ' ...

'') only a meter or so above the water. The nest is a large free hanging pouch-shaped structure, approximately in height and in diameter. It is made of plant fibres, grass, hair and wool with an entrance tube at one side. Both sexes contribute to the construction which takes around 20 days. Eggs are laid daily. The clutch contains 6 to 8 white eggs which measure and weigh . Incubation starts after the last egg is laid and lasts for 14 days. The eggs are incubated by either the male or more usually the female, but not by both. The hatching is synchronous. The young are cared for by either the male or the female but rarely by both parents. The nestlings are fed larval insects and spiders. The nestlings fledge at around 22 days of age. The parents will sometimes attempt to raise a second brood, but this is rarely successful.

Feeding

The Eurasian penduline tit usually eats insects and spiders but will also eat seeds such as those from the willow (''

''). It generally searches for food in trees but will also forage in reeds where it will take insects from the stem as well as the seed head. It uses one foot to cling to the reed and the other to pull out clumps of seeds from the head.

Status and conservation

The penduline tit has a large range, estimated at 1-10 million square kilometres (0.4-3.8 million square miles), and a population estimated at 420,000–840,000 individuals in Europe alone, and there is evidence that the population is increasing. It is therefore not believed to meet the IUCN Red List threshold criterion of a population decline of more than 30% in ten years or three generations, and is evaluated as Least Concern.

References

Sources

External links

Ageing and sexing (PDF; 3.8 MB) by Javier Blasco-Zumeta & Gerd-Michael Heinze

Biodiversity Lab University of Bath, containing info about Penduline Tit research

Penduline Tit Research Group

Images at www.naturlichter.comOn regular wintering of Eurasian Penduline Tits ''Remiz pendulinus'' in northern Morocco
Remiz Birds of Eurasia Least concern biota of Europe Birds described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus {{Remizidae-stub