The yellow-bellied flyrobin (''Cryptomicroeca flaviventris'') is a species of

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 in the Australasian robin family

Petroicidae The bird family Petroicidae includes 51 species in 19 genera. All are endemic to Australasia: New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand and numerous Pacific Islands as far east as Samoa. For want of an accurate common name, the family is often called th ...

. It is the only species in the genus ''Cryptomicroeca''. The yellow-bellied flyrobin is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

New Caledonia New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...

, where it occurs on the island of Grande Terre. It occupies a range of habitats, including dry lowlands, woodland, ''

Pinus A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. ''World Flora Online'' accepts 134 species-rank taxa (119 species and 15 nothospecies) of pines as c ...

'' and ''

Pandanus ''Pandanus'' is a genus of monocots with about 578 accepted species. They are palm-like, dioecious trees and shrubs native to the Old World tropics and subtropics. Common names include pandan, screw palm and screw pine. The genus is classified ...

'' forest, and humid forest from sea level up to .

Taxonomy

The yellow-bellied flyrobin was described in 1860 by the French ornithologists,

Jules Verreaux Jules Pierre Verreaux (24 August 1807 – 7 September 1873) was a French botanist and ornithologist and a professional collector of and trader in natural history specimens. He was the brother of Édouard Verreaux and nephew of Pierre Antoine Delal ...

and Oeillet des Murs, from a specimen collected in

. They coined 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 ...

''Eopsaltria flavigastra''. The English ornithologist,

Richard Bowdler Sharpe Richard Bowdler Sharpe (22 November 1847 – 25 December 1909) was an English people, English zoologist and ornithology, ornithologist who worked as curator of the bird collection at the British Museum of natural history. In the course of his car ...

, realised that the

specific epithet In Taxonomy (biology), 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 gramm ...

was

preoccupied In biology, a homonym is a name for a taxon that is identical in spelling to another such name, that belongs to a different taxon. The rule in the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature is that the first such name to be published is the s ...

, and in 1903 he proposed ''flaviventris'' as a replacement. The species was long considered one of the yellow robins of the genus ''

Eopsaltria ''Eopsaltria'' is a genus of small forest passerines known in Australia as the yellow robins. They belong to the Australasian robin family Petroicidae. The name is derived from the Ancient Greek for "dawn singer/song" because of their dawn choru ...

''. However, a 2009 genetic study showed it to be nested within the flyrobin genus '' Microeca'', and hence it was moved to ''Microeca'', and its common name was changed from yellow-bellied robin to yellow-bellied flyrobin in the online list of world birds maintained by Frank Gill and David Donsker on behalf of the

International Ornithological Committee The International Ornithologists' Union (IOU) is an international organization for the promotion of ornithology. It links basic and applied research and nurtures education and outreach activities. Specifically, the IOU organizes and funds global co ...

(IOC). A more comprehensive genetic study of the family

, published in 2011, found that the yellow-bellied flyrobin was divergent from the other members of ''Microeca'', and instead was

sister A sister is a woman or a girl who shares parents or a parent with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to ref ...

to a clade containing the '' Microeca'' and the torrent flyrobin. The yellow-bellied flyrobin is now placed as the only species in the genus ''Cryptomicroeca'' that was introduced in 2012.

Description

The yellow-bellied robin is a medium-sized Australasian robin, in length and weighing around . The

plumage Plumage () is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, there can b ...

is similar to members of the genus ''Eopsaltria'': dark olive-grey back, tail and wings, grey head and chest with a slightly lighter throat, and yellow belly and rump. The legs are grey.

References

* BirdLife International 2004.
Eopsaltria flaviventris

2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
Downloaded on 25 July 2007. yellow-bellied flyrobin Endemic birds of New Caledonia yellow-bellied flyrobin Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Petroicidae-stub