White-crowned Penduline Tit (Remiz coronatus) [XC832361]
by Martin Billard from Ulaanbaatar, Xan-Uul, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia (call)
White-crowned Penduline Tit (Remiz coronatus) [XC485572]
by James Lidster from Ivolginsky District, Buryatiya Republits, Russian Federation (call)
Subspecies
Remiz pendulinus (Sibley and Monroe 1990, 1993) has been split into Eurasian Penduline-Tit (Remiz pendulinus) and Black-headed Penduline-Tit (Remiz macronyx) following Harrap and Quinn (1996) who recognises four species of Remiz: pendulinus, macronyx, coronatus and consobrinus. Eck and Martens (2006) lump macronyx with pendulinus and consobrinus with coronatus citing hybridisation between macronyx and pendulinus on the north and southwest shores of the Caspian Sea as a factor, but they fail to adequately justify their treatment of White-crowned Penduline-Tit (Remiz coronatus) and Chinese Penduline-Tit (Remiz consobrinus) as conspecific. Examination of specimens and literature by the BirdLife Taxonomic Working Group suggests that the four taxa are best treated as separate species owing to consistent morphological and ecological differences between them with habitat partitioning occurring where two taxa occur in sympatry. This arrangement best fits the geographic distribution of these taxa.
Forms a species group with Eurasian Penduline-Tit (Remiz pendulinus), Black-headed Penduline-Tit (Remiz macronyx) and Chinese Penduline-Tit (Remiz consobrinus). All often considered conspecific. Probably most closely related to Eurasian Penduline-Tit (Remiz pendulinus), but sometimes considered conspecific with Chinese Penduline-Tit (Remiz consobrinus) (the other two then united as a separate species). Treatment as four distinct species based mainly on structural, as well as plumage and habitat, differences; present species differs from others in genus in bill and leg structure, as well as habitat preferences. Subspecies intergrade in south-eastern Kazakhstan.
Proposed subspecies centralasiae (from central Asia) and yeniseensis (from Sayan and Tannu-ola, on upper course of R Yenisey, in southern Russia) both considered inseparable from stoliczkae.
The following 2 subspecies are recognised:
coronatus (Severtsov, 1873) - Breeds southern and south-eastern Kazakhstan, northern Uzbekistan, southern Turkmenistan and Amu Darya valley, Kyrgyzstan, north-western China (Ili valley, in north-western Xinjiang), Tajikistan and north-eastern (probably also north-west) Afghanistan. Non-breeding eastern Iran, northern and western Afghanistan, Pakistan and north-western India (east to Haryana).
stoliczkae (Hume, 1874) - Breeds eastern Kazakhstan, southern Russia (from Altai east to Chita, in southern Transbaikalia), north-western and central Mongolia and north-western and northern China (Xinjiang east, excluding Ili valley, to íœrümqi; northern Ningxia).
BirdLife International Species Factsheet