Black-browed bushtit

The black-browed bushtit or black-browed tit (Aegithalos bonvaloti) is a species of bird in the family Aegithalidae. It is found in mid-southern China and sporadically in Myanmar. Its natural habitats are boreal forests and temperate forests. It was formerly considered to be conspecific with the rufous-fronted tit (A. iouschistos) of the central and eastern Himalayas but is now often regarded as a separate species. Sometimes the subspecies A. b. sharpei (Burmese tit) of western Burma is also treated as a species.

Black-browed bushtit
Lithograph based on a drawing by Émile Oustalet, 1892
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Aegithalidae
Genus:	Aegithalos
Species:	A. bonvaloti
Binomial name
Aegithalos bonvaloti (Oustalet, 1892)

Taxonomy

The black-browed bushtit was formally described and illustrated in 1892 by the French zoologist Émile Oustalet based on a specimen collected by the French explorer, Gabriel Bonvalot, and his companions near Kangding in the province of Sichuan of southwest China. Oustalet coined the binomial name Acredula bonvaloti.^[2][3] The black-browed bushtit is now one of nine species placed in the genus Aegithalos that was introduced in 1804 by the French naturalist Johann Hermann.^[4] The genus name was a term used by Aristotle for three European tits: the long-tailed tit, the great tit, and the Eurasian blue tit.^[5] The specific epithet bonvaloti was chosen to honour the collector.^[6] This species was formerly considered as conspecific with the rufous-fronted bushtit (Aegithalos iouschistos).^[3]

Three subspecies are recognised:^[4]

• A. b. bonvaloti (Oustalet, 1892) – southwest, central south China, northeast Myanmar
• A. b. obscuratus (Mayr, 1940) – central China
• A. b. sharpei (Rippon, G, 1904) – southwest Myanmar (Burmese bushtit)

The subspecies A. b. sharpei has sometimes been treated as a separate species, the Burmese bushtit.^[4]

Description

It is a small, long-tailed bird, 11–12 centimetres (4.3–4.7 in) long. It has grey upperparts, rufous breast and flanks and a white belly. The head is buff with a broad black mask, white forehead and a white bib, speckled black in the centre. The subspecies A. b. sharpei has white rather than buff on the head, a dark breastband and a buff belly.