Warbling White-eye

About the Warbling White-eye

The warbling white-eye (Zosterops japonicus) is a small passerine bird in the white-eye family. The specific epithet is occasionally written japonica, but this is incorrect due to the gender of the genus. Its native range includes much of East Asia, including the Russian Far East, Japan, Indonesia, Korea, and the Philippines. It has been intentionally introduced to other parts of the world as a pet and as pest control, with mixed results. As one of the native species of the Japanese islands, it has been depicted in Japanese art on numerous occasions, and historically was kept as a cage bird.

The warbling white-eye was described by the ornithologists Coenraad Jacob Temminck and Hermann Schlegel in 1847 from a specimen collected in Japan. They coined the binomial name Zosterops japonicus. The English name "Japanese white-eye" was formerly used for Zosterops japonicus and what are now the Philippine subspecies of Z. japonicus were treated as a separate species, the "mountain white-eye" Z. montanus. A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2018 found that Z. montanus and several subspecies of Z. japonicus were conspecific, and they were therefore lumped together. They... Wikipedia →