Short-billed Minivet (Pericrocotus brevirostris) [XC637294]
by Greg Irving from KM34.5 Ridge Fork, Doi Inthanon National Park, India (uncertain)
Short-billed Minivet (Pericrocotus brevirostris) [XC639711]
by Dave Guo from Linjiapu, Baoshan, Yunnan, Thailand (call)
Subspecies
Was for long erroneously considered to include partly sympatric Long-tailed Minivet (Pericrocotus ethologus). Subspecies affinis sometimes synonymized with nominate, which possibly a preferable treatment, although some specimens identified as affinis are, in fact, referable to Long-tailed Minivet (Pericrocotus ethologus). Proposed subspecies pulcherrimus, described from southern Myanmar (Mulayit Taung, in Tenasserim), considered inseparable from neglectus, and tonkinensis, described from northern Vietnam (Bac Kan, in Tonkin), indistinguishable from anthoides.
The following 4 subspecies are recognised:
brevirostris (Vigors, 1831) - Central and eastern Himalayas (in north-eastern India extending southern into western Assam) and southern China (south-eastern Xizang, north-western Yunnan).
affinis (McClelland, 1840) - North-eastern India (eastern Assam), northern Myanmar and southern China (Sichuan, western and south-western Yunnan).
neglectus Hume, 1877 - South-eastern Myanmar and north-western Thailand.
anthoides Stresemann, 1923 - Southern China (south-eastern Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, northern Guangdong), Laos and northern Vietnam.
BirdLife International Species Factsheet