Chestnut-tailed Starling - Taxonomy and Distribution

Taxonomy and Distribution

The lack of monophyly in the earlier starling genera has led to this species being placed variously under genus Sturnia, Sturnus and Temenuchus in the past (Zuccon et al., 2006) and studies have suggested the reuse of an old name Temenuchus for members of this clade. Later studies have suggested placement in the genus Sturnia.

There are three subspecies of the Chestnut-tailed Starling:

• S. m. malabarica: North-eastern India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and north-western Burma.
• S. malabarica nemoricola: Southern China (incl. Taiwan), Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.
• S. malabarica blythii: Western Ghats in India.

Both the nominate subspecies and nemoricola are known to perform some poorly understood movements (e.g. S. m. malabarica has been recorded from Pakistan and in central and southern India).

The taxon blythii is sometimes (e.g. Rasmussen & Anderton, 2005) considered a valid species, the Malabar White-headed Starling or White-headed Myna (Sturnia blythii), instead of a subspecies of Sturnia malabarica. As S. m. malabarica only visits the range of blythii during the non-breeding period (winter), the two are not known to interbreed. However a molecular study found the genetic divergence between S. malabarica blythii not significantly greater (between 0.2% and 0.8%) than between the sisters S. malabarica malabarica of northern India and S. malabarica nemoricola of Burma and Vietnam.