Little Pied Cormorant - Taxonomy

Taxonomy

The species is known as the Little Pied Cormorant in Australia, and as the Little Shag or by the Māori name of Kawaupaka in New Zealand. The term White-throated Shag is also reserved for the melanistic form there.

The Little Pied Cormorant was originally described by French naturalist Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot in 1817. Its specific epithet is derived from the Ancient Greek words melano- "black", and leukos "white". In 1931, American ornithologist James Lee Peters was the first to consider this in a separate genus along with the Pygmy Cormorant (M. pygmaeus), Little Cormorant (M. niger), and the Long-tailed Cormorant (M. africanus). Since then, molecular work by Sibley and Ahlquist showed the Little Pied and Long-tailed Cormorants formed a group which had diverged early on from other cormorants. This group of "micro-cormorants" assumed the genus name Microcarbo, initially described by French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte in 1855. The generic name is derived from the Ancient Greek mikros "small", and Latin carbo "black". However, most older authorities refer to this species as Phalacrocorax melanoleucus.

Three subspecies are commonly recognised:

• M. m. melanoleucos. Resident throughout the species range except in New Zealand and the sub-Antarctic islands
• M. m. brevicauda Mayr 1931. Endemic to Rennell Island, in the Solomon Islands
• M. m. brevirostris Gould 1837 (Little Shag). Resident throughout New Zealand and regularly seen on sub-Antarctic islands; has bred on Campbell Island. Some authorities treat this form as a distinct species, P. brevirostris.