Pygmy Nuthatch (Sitta pygmaea) [XC229772]
by Manuel Grosselet from Mount Laguna, CA, United States (call)
Pygmy Nuthatch (Sitta pygmaea) [XC571070]
by Timothy Marquardt from Mount Laguna, Desert View Rd, San Diego County, California, United States (begging call, call)
Subspecies
Forms a superspecies with Brown-headed Nuthatch (Sitta pusilla) and sometimes considered conspecific. Together, they are sometimes considered closely related to White-tailed Nuthatch (Sitta himalayensis), shared characters including white at base of tail and nape feathers. Alternatively, superspecies may represent an older invasion of North America by ancestral stock of Red-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta canadensis), and in recent limited phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial DNA present species emerged basally to a clade containing the "Red-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta canadensis) group". Geographical variation is slight and in particular, all Mexican subspecies apparently very similar (chihuahuae often merged with melanotis) and taxonomic revision possibly needed. In California (south-western USA), melanotis intergrades with nominate (on Howell Mt, in Napa County) and with leuconucha (in region of San Bernardino Mts). Proposed subspecies canescens, described from Lee Canyon, in Charleston Mts (Nevada), in south-western USA, considered indistinguishable from melanotis.
The following 7 subspecies are recognised:
melanotis van Rossem, 1929 - Extreme south-western Canada (southern British Columbia), and mountains of western USA (Cascades, Sierra Nevada, Rocky Mts and desert ranges of Great Basin) south to California (Riverside County) and east to western Montana, south-western South Dakota (Black Hills), western Nebraska (Pine Ridge area), north-western Colorado (Douglas Mts), New Mexico and western Texas (Davis Mts, Guadalupe Mts), also extreme northern Mexico in north-eastern Sonora (San José Mts) and north-western Coahuila (Sierra del Carmen).
pygmaea Vigors, 1839 - Central coastal California (from Mendocino County south to San Luis Obispo County).
leuconucha Anthony, 1889 - Mountains of extreme southern California (south of San Bernardino Mts) and extreme north-western Mexico (Sierra de Juárez and Sierra San Pedro Mártir, in northern Baja California).
chihuahuae van Rossem, 1929 - North-western Mexico at scattered sites in Sierra Madre Occidental from southern Sonora and western Chihuahua southern to Nayarit, south-western Durango, north-western Zacatecas and northern Jalisco (south to Santa Teresa and Guadalajara).
elii Phillips, AR, 1986 - Northern and north-central Mexico in Sierra Madre Oriental, south-eastern Coahuila (south-east of Saltillo) and south-western Nuevo Leon (Cerro Potosi).
brunnescens Norris, RA, 1958 - South-western Mexico in southern and western Jalisco (Sierra Nevada de Colima), Colima and south-western Michoacan; possibly also north-eastern Nayarit.
flavinucha van Rossem, 1939 - Eastern and central Mexico in western Veracruz (Las Vigas, Pico Orizaba), Distrito Federal, Morelos and western Puebla (Cerro San Miguel, Volcan Ajusco, La Cima, Popocatépetl).
BirdLife International Species Factsheet