Krüper's nuthatch
Krüper's nuthatch | |
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Male in a pine forest on the island of Lesbos, Greece. | |
Scientific classification ![]() | |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Aves |
Order: | Passeriformes |
Family: | Sittidae |
Genus: | Sitta |
Species: | S. krueperi
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Binomial name | |
Sitta krueperi Pelzeln, 1863
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Distribution of the Krüper's nuthatch | |
Synonyms[2] | |
• Sitta krüperi (Pelzeln, 1863) |
Krüper's nuthatch (Sitta krueperi) is a species of bird in the family of Sittidae. It is a small to medium nuthatch, measuring 12.5 cm in length. The upperparts are blue-gray, with the front half of the crown black in adults of both sexes, but less marked in the female rear. The species has a black or gray eye line and a prominent white supercilium. The underparts are blue-gray in males and buff-gray in females, with a large, crescent-shaped rufous pectoral patch. The Krüper's nuthatch feeds on insects in the summer and seeds, especially pines, in the autumn and winter. Breeding takes place between March and May, and the nest is usually placed in a tree hole. The spawning consists of five to seven eggs, incubated by the female and fed by the male. Both parents take part in feeding the young.
The Krüper nuthatch is found in pine and other coniferous forests in Turkey, Lesvos, and the Caucasus, largely following the distribution of Turkish pine (Pinus brutia). It is found from sea level up to 2,500 m above sea level in places. This species is one of the small nuthatches of the "canadensis group" and is particularly very close to the Algerian nuthatch (S. ledanti), the only species in which the black half-cap is found. The Krüper nuthatch is threatened by habitat loss caused by forestry and especially by tourist development on the Turkish coasts. Its numbers are in decline, but the species was reassessed as least concern by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
Taxonomy[]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c2/Sitta_krueperi_-_A_History_of_the_Birds_of_Europe.jpg/220px-Sitta_krueperi_-_A_History_of_the_Birds_of_Europe.jpg)
The Krüper nuthatch was described in 1863 by the Austrian ornithologist August von Pelzeln under the protonym Sitta krüperi, from type material from İzmir. By naming the species thus, he pays homage to its discoverer, the German ornithologist Theodor Johannes Krüper.[3] In the division into subgenera of the genus Sitta, little was used, the Krüper nuthatch is placed in Sitta (Micrositta) (Buturlin, 1916), which also includes the Algerian nuthatch (S. ledanti), Yunnan nuthatch (S. yunnanensis), Red-breasted nuthatch (S. canadensis), Chinese nuthatch (S. villosa) and Corsican nuthatch (S. whiteheadi).[4] According to the International Ornithological Congress and Alan P. Peterson, no subspecies are distinguished.[5][6]
Phylogeny[]
In 1998, Éric Pasquet studied the cytochrome b of the mitochondrial DNA of ten species of nuthatches, including the different species of the Sitta canadensis group,[7] which he defined as six species, which are also sometimes treated as the subgenus Sitta (micrositta) (Buturlin, 1916).[4] The Yunnan nuthatch (S. yunnanensis) was not included in the study. Pasquet concludes that the Krüper nuthatch can be compared phylogenetically to the Algerian nuthatch, with these two species forming the sister group of a clade comprising the Chinese nuthatch, the Corsican nuthatch, and the red-breasted nuthatch. In 2014, Éric Pasquet and colleagues published a phylogeny based on nuclear and mitochondrial DNA from 21 species of nuthatches and confirmed the 1998 study's relationships within the canadensis group, adding the Yunnan nuthatch, which was found to be the most basal of the species.[fn. 2]
The conclusions of the study are in agreement with the morphology of the species, the Red-breasted, Corsican, and Chinese nuthatches sharing, in particular as a derivative characteristic, the entirely black crown only present in males, a unique trait in Sittidae and related families. The second clade, grouping together Krüper and Algerian nuthatches are thought to have the front of the black crown for synapomorphism in males, this sexual dimorphism being absent in young individuals.[4]
Phylogeography[]
A study on the phylogeography of the species was published in 2012 and concerns five sampling sites in Turkey. The authors conclude that there is significant genetic diversity between the different localities, showing that the species was found in at least three refuges during the last glaciation maximum. The populations of the South are significantly different from the populations of the North of the country, but the different populations of the North have intensively mixed their genes after the retreat of the glaciers, and have quite similar nuclear DNA material, although we observe a marked geographical structure by studying their mitochondrial genomes.[8]
Nuthatch phylogenic detail according to Pasquet, et al. (2014):[9] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Description[]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/17/Sitta_ledanti_-_Karim_Haddad_%28cropped%29.jpeg/220px-Sitta_ledanti_-_Karim_Haddad_%28cropped%29.jpeg)
The upperparts are blue-gray with a black front crown in adults of both sexes, and the primary and secondary flight feathers are gray-brown. The eyebrow is white and underlined by a black eye line that is a little less well defined behind the eye. The throat is white and the rest of the underparts are pale gray with a large reddish patch on the crescent-shaped breast. The underwing-coverts are off-white and the undertail is rufous, with white tips.[10] The eye is surrounded by a thin white eye ring,[10] and the iris is dark cinnamon or brown.[11] The bill is horn-gray with the base of the lower mandible and the culmen is grey-blue. The legs are gray-brown or dark gray.[11] The Krüper nuthatch is a small to medium nuthatch, measuring 12.5 cm in length.[10] The study of 41 different measurements of many individuals across different localities in Turkey showed small variations in size along the range.[12]
The sexual dimorphism is not very pronounced, especially in summer when the feathers are worn, but the shell of the female is less black and less clearly defined in the rear when the glossy black of the male's is clearly defined.[10] Female underparts are paler and buff, when pure gray in males, tending to blue.[10][13] The juvenile, on the other hand, is more easily distinguished, having much duller plumage and lacking the black crown; at most, the front of it is darker than the rest of the upperparts. His red pectoral spot is not very marked, as are the eyebrow and the eye line. It is distinguished from the adult female by its fresh plumage when the latter's feathers are worn and its dark crown. Adults in their first year sometimes have some persistent brown on the tips of the feathers of their greater coverts.[10] Adults moult completely post-nuptial (from mid-May to early September) and sometimes a partial moult before the breeding season (March), which particularly affects the breast. There is also a partial post-juvenile moult involving mid-coverts.[11]
The Krüper nuthatch is part of the canadensis species group. It is notably very close to the Algerian nuthatch (Sitta ledanti), with the front of the crown dark and the marked white supercilium, but the Algerian nuthatch has cream or buff underparts and does not have a large reddish-brown pectoral patch.[13] This spot is characteristic of the Krüper's nuthatch, as is the marked difference between adults and juveniles.[11]
Ecology and behavior[]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a8/Turkse_boomklever-2.jpg/220px-Turkse_boomklever-2.jpg)
The Krüper nuthatch lives alone or in pairs during the breeding season, and the pair stays with their young. In autumn, it is observed in groups of two to five individuals, sometimes taking part in mixed-species foraging flock.[14]
Vocalizations[]
The Krüper nuthatch is a noisy bird, and is often easily spotted by its calls.[10] The contact call is a dvui, sometimes given in a dui-dui-dui-dui series and reminiscent of the European Greenfinch (Chloris chloris). Nervous, it produces a rough èèhch reminiscent of the Eurasian Jay (Garrulus glandarius) or a dry puik.[13][15] The song is a tuituituitui... nasal, alternating high and low notes, at variable rhythm.[13]
Food[]
The Krüper nuthatch is an active bird, and it finds its food among the smallest branches at the tops of large trees, but also on other levels of vegetation. It can prospect in the bushes and even feed on the ground.[14] It feeds mainly on insects during the breeding season, but when these become scarce, in autumn and winter, it consumes seeds of pine trees and other conifers. The insects are gleaned from the branches or caught in flight, and the seeds of conifers are extracted from the scales of the cones with the help of the beak, before being stuck in a crack of bark and opened by hammering. The Krüper's nuthatch also makes food hiding places that can be used when humidity closes the pine cones, making their seeds inaccessible, and the existence of these pantries could explain the territoriality of the bird, even outside.[14]
Breeding[]
The breeding season takes place from mid-March to mid-May in Turkey, the date depending on the location and altitude. In southern Anatolia, egg laying begins at the end of March;[16] in the Caucasus, it takes place in April–May.[14] There is only one brood per year. The nest is often placed in the hole of a conifer far from the ground. A study carried out over four breeding seasons in southern Turkey showed that nests were built almost 12 m in height, with extremes between 2.1 and 24 meters, and were often facing east.[16] This nuthatch usually uses already existing cavities and simply cleans them, especially by the female, but can dig its own hole in the trunks and dead branches. Egg laying was observed already formed on the top of a stem or on a pile of sticks on the fork of a tree, but these unusual nesting sites could be used only in case of unavailability of cavities.[14]
Unlike other nuthatches, the Krüper nuthatch does not brick the entrance to its hole with mud or resin. The bottom of the nest is lined with bark chips, rotten wood, and scales of pine cones, covered with moss, hair, wool, and feathers. The female does most of the work and lays four to seven eggs, usually five or six, measuring 17 13 mm, creamy white with small red or purplish spots and speckles, mostly concentrated at the larger end. Incubation lasts 12 to 17 days and is carried out by the female alone, fed by the male.[16][14] The female also broods the young, but both parents take part in the feeding.[14] The young are mainly fed on beetles, insect larvae, lepidoptera, and earthworms. On average, four young are led to fledging, which takes place at the age of 15–19 days.[16]
Parasites[]
In a Turkish study published in 2012, the Krüper nuthatch was found to host blood protists of the genera Haemoproteus and Leucocytozoon, but none of the 67 individuals studied was parasitized by Plasmodium.[17]
Distribution and habitat[]
The Krüper nuthatch is virtually endemic to Turkey, where it is common in western Anatolia and where it also lives along the Mediterranean coast in the Taurus Mountains and along the Black Sea coast north of the country, as far as southern Georgia. A supposedly disjointed population populates the Caucasian mountains of the extreme southwest of Russia, on the Georgian border, in the Adygea and the Federal District of the North Caucasus, in the southeast as far as Teberda. They also live on the Greek island of Lesbos, which is erratic in mainland Greece, where it was, for example, observed in Thessaloniki in October 1955.[14] In 2010, a new nesting area was reported in central Anatolia, in Yozgat province, in the Ak mountains. The site consists of a pure forest of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) and could shelter nearly 560 individuals.[18]
This species has a very close relationship with the Turkish pine (Pinus brutia), and the range of the bird almost covers that of the tree. However, the bird is absent from the Turkish pine forests of Crimea, northwestern Syria, Lebanon, northern Iraq, and Azerbaijan, where it may have lived in the past or have gone unnoticed for the time being. The Krüper's nuthatch is sedentary but undertakes small dispersions after the breeding season. Seasonal altitudinal movements have also been noted, with some birds, possibly adults in their first year, descending from heights in winter to reach mixed or deciduous forests. The bird is commonly observed in the arboretum of Sochi, which has many conifers.[14]
The Krüper nuthatch lives in temperate coniferous forests, from sea level up to around 2000 meters above sea level, locally up to the tree line at 2500 m.[14] In Turkey, it lives mainly between 1000 and 1600 m and inhabits the forests of Turkish pine (Pinus brutia), Caucasian spruce (Picea orientalis), Nordmann fir (Abies nordmanniana), Cilician fir (Abies cilicica), black pine (Pinus nigra) and cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani).[14] The population densities in individuals per square kilometer are 12.7, 11.6, 8.5, and 7.8 respectively in the forests of black pine, cilician fir, cedar of Lebanon, and pine of Calabria.[1][19] At higher altitudes, it can live among junipers (Juniperus).[14][1] In the Caucasus, it favors spruce forests between 1000 and 2000 m, but also forests of Nordmann fir and pines.[1]
Status and threats[]
The Krüper's nuthatch is common in Anatolia, but numbers are low in the Caucasus. On the island of Lesbos, populations are assumed to be stable despite the destruction of old trees caused by commercial exploitation of resin.[14] Habitat modification due to fire and logging poses a risk of extinction. In Turkey, a law promoting tourism put in place in 2003 has exacerbated threats to the bird: it reduces bureaucracy and makes it easier to build tourist facilities and summer houses in the coastal area where the bird was once abundant, and forest loss is a growing problem for the nuthatch.[1] Until 2014, numbers were estimated at around 80,000–170,000 breeding pairs, or 240,000–510,000 individuals in all, and are declining. For these reasons, the species is considered "near threatened" by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. In 2015, a new estimate puts the number of breeding pairs at 121,000–451,000, and although the species is in continual decline, it is estimated that the species does not lose more than a quarter of its numbers in three generations. For these reasons, the species is reassessed as "least concern".
Footnotes[]
- ^ The 21 species are out of 24 species recognized as making up the genus by Simon Harrap and David Quinn as of 1996. Of these, the study omitted the Indian nuthatch (Sitta castanea), the yellow-billed nuthatch (Sitta solangiae) and the white-browed nuthatch (Sitta victoriae). The International Ornithological Congress however recognized 28 species in 2012, based on the elevation of four taxa from subspecies to full-species status, including Przevalski's nuthatch (S. przewalskii) and three species from the europaea group.[9]
References[]
- ^ a b c d e BirdLife International (2016). "Sitta krueperi". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2016: e.T22711184A94282660. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22711184A94282660.en. Retrieved 12 November 2021.
- ^ Dickinson, Edward C.; Loskot, Edward C.; Loskot, Vladimir M.; Morioka, Hiroyuki; Somadikarta, Soekarja (2000). "Systematic notes on Asian birds. 66. Types of the Sittidae and Certhiidae". Zoologische Mededelingen (80): 287–310.
- ^ Pelzeln, August von (1863). Über zwei von Dr. Krüper zu Smyrna gesammelte Vogelarten. 48. Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Classe. p. 149–151.
- ^ a b c Matthysen, Erik (2010). The Nuthatches. London: A & C Black. p. 355. ISBN 978-1-4081-2870-1. OCLC 727646681.
- ^ "Nuthatches, Wallcreeper, treecreepers, mockingbirds, starlings & oxpeckers". Version 6.4. International Ornithological Congress (IOC) World Bird List. 22 October 2016. Family Sittidae. Archived from the original on 22 December 2016.
- ^ "World Birds Taxonomic List: Genera and species with citations". Zoonomen Nomenclature Resource Page. 1 March 2002. Retrieved 26 December 2021.
- ^ Pasquet, Eric (2 January 1998). "Phylogeny of the nuthatches of the Sitta canadensis group and its evolutionary and biogeographic implications". Ibis. 140 (1): 150–156. doi:10.1111/j.1474-919X.1998.tb04553.x – via Wiley Online Library.
- ^ Albayrak, Tamer; Gonzalez, Javier; Drovetski, Sergei V.; Wink, Michael (1 April 2012). "Phylogeography and population structure of Krüper's Nuthatch Sitta krueperi from Turkey based on microsatellites and mitochondrial DNA". Journal of Ornithology. 153 (2): 405–411. doi:10.1007/s10336-011-0756-4. S2CID 15403704 – via Springer Link.
- ^ a b Pasquet, Eric; Barker, F. Keith; Martens, Jochen; Tillier, Annie; Cruaud, Corinne & Cibois, Alice (April 2014). "Evolution within the nuthatches (Sittidae: Aves, Passeriformes): molecular phylogeny, biogeography, and ecological perspectives". Journal of Ornithology. 155 (3): 755–765. doi:10.1007/s10336-014-1063-7. S2CID 17637707.
- ^ a b c d e f g Harrap 1996, p. 138.
- ^ a b c d Harrap 1996, p. 140.
- ^ Tamer Albayrak; Aurélien Besnard & Ali Erdogan (2011). "Morphometric Change and Population Relationships of Krüper's Nuthatch (Sitta krueperi) in Turkey". The Wilson Journal of Ornithology. 123 (11): 734-740.
- ^ a b c d Svensson, Lars (2010). Le guide ornitho : le guide le plus complet des oiseaux d'Europe, d'Afrique du Nord et du Moyen-Orient: 900 espèces [The ornitho guide: The most complete guide to the birds of Europe, Africa North and Middle East: 900 species] (in French). Paris: Delachaux and Niestlé. p. 348–349. ISBN 978-2-603-01695-4.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harrap 1996, p. 139.
- ^ "Sittelle de Krüper - Sitta krueperi - Krüper's Nuthatch". www.oiseaux.net.
- ^ a b c d Albayrak, Tamer; Erdoğan, Ali (2005). Breeding ecology of Krüper's nuthatch (Sitta krueperi) near Antalya, Turkey. 51. Israel Journal of Zoology. p. 309–314. doi:10.1560/D4YU-JAPF-6Y65-RF53.
- ^ Marzal, Alfonso; Albayrak, Tamer (1 October 2012). "Geographical variation of haemosporidian parasites in Turkish populations of Krüper's Nuthatch Sitta krueperi". Journal of Ornithology. 153 (4): 1225–1231. doi:10.1007/s10336-012-0853-z. S2CID 14866560 – via Springer Link.
- ^ Albayrak, Tamer; Erdoğan, Ali (1 January 2010). "A GIS-based approach to assess the population size of Krüper's Nuthatch, Sitta krueperi at a newly found breeding area in Inner Anatolia". Zoology in the Middle East. 49 (1): 27–32. doi:10.1080/09397140.2010.10638385. S2CID 86046667 – via Taylor and Francis+NEJM.
- ^ Albayrak, Tamer; Bairlein, Franz; Erdogan, Ali (2010). "Habitat parameters and density of breeding Krüper's Nuthatch Sitta krueperi Pelzeln in southern Turkey". Polish Journal of Ecology. 58: 545-552. Retrieved 2 January 2020.
External links[]
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sitta krueperi. |
- Oiseaux Photographs and text.Fiche
- IUCN Red List least concern species
- Nuthatches
- Birds of Western Asia
- Birds described in 1863
- Taxa named by August von Pelzeln
- Natural history of Anatolia