Australian raven
The Australian raven is a passerine bird in the genus Corvus native to southern and northeastern Australia. Measuring 46–53 centimetres in length, it has all-black plumage, beak and mouth, as well as strong grey-black legs and feet. Two subspecies are recognized, which differ slightly in calls and are quite divergent genetically.
About Australian raven in brief
The Australian raven is a passerine bird in the genus Corvus native to southern and northeastern Australia. Measuring 46–53 centimetres in length, it has all-black plumage, beak and mouth, as well as strong grey-black legs and feet. The preferred habitat is open woodland and transitional zones. It has adapted well to urban environments and is a common city bird in Sydney, Canberra, and Perth. The raven is territorial, with pairs generally bonding for life. Breeding takes place between July and September, with almost no variation across its range. The nest is a bowl-shaped structure of sticks sited high in a tree, or occasionally in a man-made structure such as a windmill or other building. The Australian raven was first described by Nicholas Aylward Vigors and Thomas Horsfield in 1827, when they reported George Caley’s early notes on the species from the Sydney district. Its species name highlights its similarity with the carrion crow. Two subspecies are recognized, which differ slightly in calls and are quite divergent genetically. In 1877 Richard Bowdler Sharpe recognised two species, but recorded that the feather bases of the type specimen of C. coronoides were white. In 1912, Scottish naturalist William Robert Ogilvie-Grant corrected this in 1912 after re-examining thetype specimen, clarifying the species as C. coronoide and C.
cecilae. Gregory Mathews described the western subspecies perplexus in 1912, naming it the southwestern crow and noting that it was smaller than the nominate subspecies. John Gould recognised only one species of corvid in Australia in 1865, which he called the white-eyed crow. He used Johann Friedrich Gmelin’s 1788 name, which predated Vigor’s description. In the same work he listed a type specimen from Gosford and listing its range as New South Wales, calling it the raven. In 1943, Charles Vaurie acted as first reviser of the International Code of Zoological Code of Nclomen and discarded C. australis as the name after declaring it to be pre-occupied by the French-American ornithologist Charles Nclomis. In 1945, he listed the little raven and forest raven subspecies as CorvUS marianae Mathews, 1911, and declared it as the new name for the raven after declaring C. marian marian as the pre-occupation of the raven’s range. In 1947, he erected the name C. marian in 1911, declaring the raven to be the new species. In 1952, he called it the coronoided crow, and listed what is now the Australian crow as the north-western crow and its range as northwestern Australia. In 1953, he recorded the western crow as CorVus marian, and listing the raven as the northwest crow. In 1958, he named the western raven as Cor Vauris marian.
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This page is based on the article Australian raven published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 01, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
