Dear Birders, Some time ago on this forum Murray Lord drew attention to a paper proposing a split in the Grasswren taxonomy including that of Striated Grasswren. The Striated Grasswren splits the species four ways – Rowleyi (‘Rusty Grasswren’) from western Queensland; whitei (‘Pilbara Grasswren’); oweni (‘Sandhill Grasswren’) whose range is South Australia west of Port Augusta up through southern NT and the eastern side of WA; which leaves striatus as occurring in the mallee country of eastern SA, NSW and Vic. This proposal has apparently been considered by IOC and rejected at this stage. The ‘Diary’ section of the IOC website has an entry reading “Aug 30 Decline Striated Grasswren splits pending improved sampling”. Can any of our readers enlighten me on what this actually means. Are the IOC looking for more physical samples of SGs to have their DNA sampled or are they looking for sampling of more loci of the DNA or are they after something else altogether? Does anyone know if there is interest in the scientific community in doing whatever else is asked for by IOC? If so when might such work get published? Obviously it is still a good idea for we twitchers to keep an eye out for the sub-species as there is a good chance that at some time in the future they will be elevated to full species Regards Peter Marsh
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hi Peter, i’m no taxonomist by any means but I personally believe there is some merit in splitting this species complex on a habitat preference basis… it’s a rather simplified way to look at it I know, but I’ve always looked at the sand-hill birds as being distinct from the rocky/stony substrate birds – this was one of the main factors I believe behind the Short-tailed being split originally from Striated group that we are talking about. so this would put rowleyi & whitei (rocky substrate dwellers) as distinct from striatus & oweni (sand-hill dwellers). given the geographical distance between populations of rowleyi & whitei then this alone should warrant their case for being split from one another, however i’m less convinced that oweni should be split into species level from striatus as the ranges probably meet & maybe their differentiation is more clinal & gradual as a result… this is just a field worker’s point of view from a common sensical angle without any science behind it… just a thought… cheers, martin cachard, cairns
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