Striated Pardalote

About the Striated Pardalote

The striated pardalote (Pardalotus striatus) is the least colourful and most common of the four pardalote species. Other common names include pickwick, wittachew and chip-chip. It is a very small, short-tailed bird that is more often heard than seen, foraging noisily for lerps and other small creatures in the treetops.

The striated pardalote was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the manakins in the genus Pipra and coined the binomial name Pipra striata. Gmelin based his description on the "striped-headed manakin" that had been described and illustrated in 1783 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his book A General Synopsis of Birds. Latham had examined a specimen in the collection of the naturalist Joseph Banks. The type locality is Tasmania. The striated pardalote is now placed with the three other pardalotes in the genus Pardalotus that was introduced in 1816 by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot.

Six subspecies are recognised: P. s. uropygialis Gould, 1840 – northeast Western Australia to Cape York Peninsula, northeast... Wikipedia →