Nauru reed warbler

Nauru reed warbler

Nauru reed warbler is endemic to the island of Nauru in the Pacific Ocean. It is one of only two native breeding land-birds on the island. A medium-sized warbler, it has dark brown upperparts, cream underparts and a long, thin beak.

About Nauru reed warbler in brief

Summary Nauru reed warblerNauru reed warbler is endemic to the island of Nauru in the Pacific Ocean. It is one of only two native breeding land-birds on the island. A medium-sized warbler, it has dark brown upperparts, cream underparts and a long, thin beak. It makes a low, cup-shaped nest into which it lays two or three white eggs, and it feeds on insects. Details about its behavior and ecology are little known. The species is potentially threatened by introduced predators and habitat loss, and its small range means that it could be vulnerable to chance occurrences, such as tropical cyclones. Reports of a similar warbler from nearby islands suggest that it might previously have been found elsewhere, but was driven to local extinction by introduced cats. A 2011 analysis of mitochondrial DNA showed that the NaurU reedWarbler forms a clade with the Australian reedwarbler, the bokikokiko, the southern Marquesan reed Warbler and a now-extinct species from Pagan Island in the Marianas. The closest relative is the Pagan Warbler, which is currently named as a subspecies of the nightingale reedbler, Arocephalus luscinius yamina, but that species has been proposed as a new species.

The nearest warblers from other islands were colonised by the Hawaiian islands about 3 million years ago, and later geographically later by Australia and Australia. The next nearest warbler was the Acrocephalidae, which colonised the Pacific islands by the mid-Pleistocene or even later, with multiple colonisations of remote archipelago islands and even remote islands of the Hawaiian Islands in the 1970s and 1980s. The Carolinian reed-warbler is the only other species of warbler to be found on the Micronesian islands. It was initially confused with the Carolinian warbler and was sometimes considered to be the same species. Recent DNA studies have affirmed its status as a separate species, and there are no recognised subspecies. The generic name Calamoherpe is now recognised as a synonym of AcrocephalUS, leading to the current binomial name. In the native Nauruan language, it is known as Itsirir, and the species is also known as the pleasant warbler.