Black Currawong - Taxonomy

Taxonomy

The Black Currawong was first described by ornithologist John Gould in 1836 as Cracticus fuliginosus, and in 1837 as Coronica fuliginosa. The specific epithet is the Late Latin adjective fuliginosus "sooty" from Latin fūlīgo "soot", and refers to the black plumage. American ornithologist Dean Amadon regarded the Black Currawong as a subspecies of the Pied Currawong (Strepera graculina), seeing it as part of a continuum with subspecies ashbyi of the latter species, the complex having progressively less white plumage as one moves south. Subsequent authors have considered it a separate species, although Richard Schodde and Ian Mason describe it as forming a superspecies with the Pied Currawong.

Common names include Black Currawong, Sooty Currawong, Black Bell-magpie, Black or Mountain Magpie, Black or Sooty Crow-shrike, and Muttonbird. Black Jay is a local name applied to the species within Tasmania. The species is often confused with the local dark-plumaged subspecies of the Grey Currawong (S. versicolor), known as the Clinking Currawong or Hill Magpie.

There are three subspecies of the Black Currawong: the nominate form Strepera fuliginosa fuliginosa of Tasmania; Strepera fuliginosa parvior of Flinders Island, described by Schodde and Mason in 1999; and Strepera fuliginosa colei of King Island, described by Gregory Mathews in 1916. The two island subspecies have identical plumage to the nominate, but are slightly smaller with shorter wings and tails, subspecies colei having a shorter tail than parvior.

Together with the Pied and Grey Currawong, the Black Currawong forms the genus Strepera. Although crow-like in appearance and habits, currawongs are only distantly related to true crows, and are instead closely related to the Australian Magpie and the butcherbirds. The affinities of all three genera were recognised early on and they were placed in the family Cracticidae in 1914 by ornithologist John Albert Leach after he had studied their musculature. Ornithologists Charles Sibley and Jon Ahlquist recognised the close relationship between the woodswallows and the butcherbirds and relatives in 1985, and combined them into a Cracticini clade, which later became the family Artamidae.