Chinese Hwamei

About the Chinese Hwamei

The Chinese hwamei or melodious laughingthrush (Garrulax canorus) is a passerine bird of eastern Asia in the laughingthrush family Leiothrichidae. The name "hwamei" comes from its Chinese name huà méi, which means "painted eyebrow", referring to the distinctive marking around the bird's eyes. The species is a popular cagebird because of its attractive song.

The Chinese hwamei was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with the thrushes in the genus Turdus and coined the binomial name Turdus canorus. Linnaeus specified the type locality as Bengal and China but this has been restricted to Amoy (now Xiamen) in Fujian, China. The specific epithet is Latin meaning "melodious" (from canere "to sing"). The Chinese hwamei is now one of 14 laughingthrushes placed in the genus Garrulax that was introduced in 1831 by René Lesson.

Two subspecies are recognised: G. c. canorus, native to mainland Asia, and G. c. owstoni of Hainan Island. The Taiwan hwamei (G. taewanum) was formerly considered to be a subspecies of the Chinese hwamei but has recently been split as a separate species. This was based... Wikipedia →