The sooty shrikethrush (''Colluricincla tenebrosa'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

in the family

Pachycephalidae The Pachycephalidae are a family of bird species that includes the whistlers, shrikethrushes, and three of the pitohuis, and is part of the ancient Australo-Papuan radiation of songbirds. The family includes 64 species that are separated into fi ...

. It is found in the

New Guinea Highlands The New Guinea Highlands, also known as the Central Range or Central Cordillera, is a long chain of mountain ranges on the island of New Guinea, including the island's tallest peak, Puncak Jaya , the highest mountain in Oceania. The range is home ...

. Its natural

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

is subtropical or tropical moist

montane forest Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is a crucia ...

Taxonomy and systematics

The sooty shrikethrush was formerly known as ''Colluricincla umbrina'' (Reichenow, 1915), as the name ''Rectes tenebrosus'' Hartlaub & Finsch, 1868 (the morningbird) has priority over ''Pachycephala tenebrosa'' Rothschild, 1911 (the sooty shrikethrush) when the two species are placed in the same genus; with the transfer of the morningbird from the genus ''Colluricincla'' to ''

Pachycephala ''Pachycephala'' is a genus of birds native to Oceania and Southeast Asia. They are commonly known as typical whistlers. Older guidebooks may refer to them as thickheads, a literal translation of the generic name, which is derived from the Ancien ...

'' in 2013, the sooty shrikethrush reverted from ''umbrina'' to the older name ''tenebrosa''. Alternate names for the sooty shrikethrush include the obscure shrike-thrush, sooty robin-whistler and sooty whistler.

Subspecies

Two subspecies are recognized: * ''C. t. atra'' - ( Rothschild, 1931): Found on northern slopes of central

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torr ...

mountains * ''C. t. tenebrosa'' - (Rothschild, 1911): Found on southern slopes of central New Guinea mountains

References

sooty shrikethrush Birds of New Guinea sooty shrikethrush Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Corvoidea-stub