Gray Honeyeater

About the Gray Honeyeater

The grey honeyeater (Conopophila whitei) is a species of bird in the honeyeater family. It is an uncommon and little-known bird, an often overlooked endemic of remote areas in central Australia. Currently placed as a species of the genus Conopophila and classified within the honeyeater family Meliphagidae, Conopophila whitei was first described by A. J. North in 1910 as Lacustroica whitei. The population continued to be assigned to a monotypic genus Lacustroica, or as most closely related to two other species, the rufous-banded (Conopophila rufogularis) and rufous-throated (C. albogularis) honeyeaters.

The species was found by F. Lawson Whitlock in 1903 at Lake Austin in Western Australia, but no formal description was made. The two specimens he shot and prepared were sent to the Western Australian Museum, about which he received no reply. At the beginning of his later expedition, in 1909, Whitlock killed and skinned a male of the species, recognised as the same he collected in 1903, and located the preparation of a nest by a breeding pair close to the town-site of Wiluna. Whitlock also noted the location of other nesting sites on his journeys around Wiluna, all of which... Wikipedia →