Short-toed Treecreeper - Taxonomy

Taxonomy

The Short-toed Treecreeper was first described by Christian Ludwig Brehm in 1820. The binomial name is derived from Greek; kerthios is a small tree-dwelling bird described by Aristotle and others, and brachydactyla comes from brakhus, "short" and dactulos "finger", which refers, like the English name, to the fact that this species has shorter toes than the Common Treecreeper.

This species is one of a group of very similar treecreeper species, all placed in the single genus Certhia. Eight species are currently recognised, in two evolutionary lineages, a Holarctic radiation, and a Sino-Himalayan group south and east of the Himalayas. The former group has a more warbling song, always (except in C. familiaris from China) starting or ending with a shrill sreeh. The Himalayan species, in contrast, have a faster-paced trill without the sreeh sound. The Short-toed Treecreeper belongs to the northern group, along with the North American Brown Creeper, C. americana, the Common Treecreeper, C. familaris, of temperate Eurasia, and Hodgson's Treecreeper, C. hodgsoni, from the southern rim of the Himalayas.