Hume's Ground Tit
Encyclopedia
The Tibetan Ground-tit or Hume's Ground-tit (Pseudopodoces humilis) is a lark
-like bird
which lives to the north of the Himalayas
. It is also known simply as Ground Tit or simply as Hume's Groundpecker. It was formerly thought to belong to the family
Corvidae
which includes the crows and jays and was called as the Hume's Ground-jay or Tibetan Ground-jay. This species
has since been identified as a member of the tit family (Paridae) and is the only species in the genus
Pseudopodoces.
s (Podoces) but much smaller – about the size of a House Sparrow
(Passer domesticus) – and lacks any conspicuous markings. More strongly however, it resembles a wheatear
(Oenanthe) in habitus
, but lacks black feathers and has a strong and slightly downcurved bill resembling that of a chough
(Pyrrhocorax) in shape (though not in colour). Its soft, lax body plumage
is extremely cryptic
in its natural habitat
. The underside is a greyish-fawn
in colour, with a tawny
hue. The upper parts are mostly a darker fawn-brown, with the central rectrices and the primary remiges a little darker still; the head is colored like the underside, with a darker cap and light nape patch, somewhat reminiscent of some tit
s and chickadees, especially those from the genera
Parus
sensu stricto and Periparus
. The bill, legs and feet are black. Males and females look alike.
The voice is described as a plaintive whistling, cheep-cheep-cheep-cheep and it also has a two syllable finch
-like call.
s (Podoces), based on its voice and habits. Its autapomorphies have certainly puzzled 20th century ornithologists, but due to its remote range and nondescript appearance, it was little studied and not suspected to be anything but an aberrant ground jay for more than 100 years after its description by Hume. In 1978 and 1989 however, two studies of its anatomy
determined that – although at that time unassignable to any family
due to its peculiar adaptations, it appeared that it was not a corvid but a more advanced songbird of the infraorder today known as Passerida
.
From 2003 onwards, osteological, mtDNA and nDNA sequence
and other biochemical data has firmly allied it with the tits and chickadees (Paridae). In fact, genetic evidence suggests that it is a closer relative of the Great Tit
and its relatives in the genus Parus sensu stricto than the chickadees and their relatives of the genus Poecile
.
of China
and the neighboring areas of western Sichuan
and Gansu
. The Tibetan Ground-tit inhabits open alpine
steppe
and sometimes more arid
regions with small scattered shrubs, rarely if ever occurring lower than 3,000 meters above sea level
. It is not found anywhere where dense vegetation (especially trees) predominates. The flight of this bird is not strong and it flies low over the ground preferring to run or jump out of the way if approached which it does very quickly. It moves on the ground in unpredictable hops and bounces which can be quite long – jumps of three times the bird's length are achieved without assistance by the wings – rather than striding or running like Podoces ground jays. Observers have compared the sight of a Tibetan Ground-tit moving along to a small greyish-brown rubber ball
.
It obtains food on the ground, eating a wide range of arthropod
prey, often obtained by probing Yak
(Bos grunniens) dung and turning it over to flush the prey out. It also peers into rock crevices and into holes in the ground in its search for food. Individuals have been observed to poke mud in and near puddle
s like Hoopoe
s (Upupa epops); in general the bill is used extensively used for digging, much like the similarly-shaped one of the Red-billed Chough
(Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax). If chased by a bird of prey
or other predator, it will bolt straight down the nearest hole like a rodent
until the danger has passed. They are frequently found near colonies of pika
s (Ochotona). Though the birds and the mammals probably benefit from each others' vigilance, their association is probably less due to a strong mutualism but rather because both prefer habitat
with similar ground cover and soil
.
The nest is rather unusual for that of a passerine
, being built inside a burrow which the birds excavate themselves. It is usually dug horizontally into a bank or wall of earth, and can reach a depth of 1.8 meters. The nest is placed at the end of this in a small chamber and consists usually just of bit of wool placed onto a grass base. The 4–6 egg
s are pure white and the young stay with their parents for some time after fledging; half-grown young are still fed by their parents on occasion as late as August.
Hume's Ground-tit is not a migratory bird but may descend lower altitudes in valleys during the winter. In addition to digging nesting burrows, ground-tits frequently dig roosting burrows to use during the coldest months.
Lark
Larks are passerine birds of the family Alaudidae. All species occur in the Old World, and in northern and eastern Australia; only one, the Shore Lark, has spread to North America, where it is called the Horned Lark...
-like bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
which lives to the north of the Himalayas
Himalayas
The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...
. It is also known simply as Ground Tit or simply as Hume's Groundpecker. It was formerly thought to belong to the family
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...
Corvidae
Corvidae
Corvidae is a cosmopolitan family of oscine passerine birds that contains the crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays, magpies, treepies, choughs and nutcrackers. The common English names used are corvids or the crow family , and there are over 120 species...
which includes the crows and jays and was called as the Hume's Ground-jay or Tibetan Ground-jay. This species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
has since been identified as a member of the tit family (Paridae) and is the only species in the genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
Pseudopodoces.
Description
P. humilis is somewhat similar to the unrelated ground jayGround jay
The ground jays or ground choughs belong to a distinct group of the passerine order of birds in the genus Podoces of the crow family Corvidae...
s (Podoces) but much smaller – about the size of a House Sparrow
House Sparrow
The House Sparrow is a bird of the sparrow family Passeridae, found in most parts of the world. One of about 25 species in the genus Passer, the House Sparrow occurs naturally in most of Europe, the Mediterranean region, and much of Asia...
(Passer domesticus) – and lacks any conspicuous markings. More strongly however, it resembles a wheatear
Wheatear
The wheatears are passerine birds of the genus Oenanthe. They were formerly considered to be members of the thrush family Turdidae, but are now more commonly placed in the flycatcher family Muscicapidae...
(Oenanthe) in habitus
Morphology (biology)
In biology, morphology is a branch of bioscience dealing with the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features....
, but lacks black feathers and has a strong and slightly downcurved bill resembling that of a chough
Chough
The Red-billed Chough or Chough , Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax, is a bird in the crow family; it is one of only two species in the genus Pyrrhocorax...
(Pyrrhocorax) in shape (though not in colour). Its soft, lax body plumage
Plumage
Plumage refers both to the layer of feathers that cover a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage vary between species and subspecies and can also vary between different age classes, sexes, and season. Within species there can also be a...
is extremely cryptic
Crypsis
In ecology, crypsis is the ability of an organism to avoid observation or detection by other organisms. It may be either a predation strategy or an antipredator adaptation, and methods include camouflage, nocturnality, subterranean lifestyle, transparency, and mimicry...
in its natural habitat
Habitat
* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...
. The underside is a greyish-fawn
Fawn (colour)
Fawn is a light yellowish brown colour that is usually used in reference to a dog's coat colour.The first recorded use of fawn as a colour name in English was in 1789.-Fawn in animal breeds:Dog Breeds...
in colour, with a tawny
Tawny (color)
Tawny is a yellowish brown color. The word means "tan-colored," from Anglo-Norman tauné "associated with the brownish-yellow of tanned leather," from Old French tané "to tan hides," from Medieval Latin tannare, from tannum "crushed oak bark," used in tanning leather, probably from a Celtic source...
hue. The upper parts are mostly a darker fawn-brown, with the central rectrices and the primary remiges a little darker still; the head is colored like the underside, with a darker cap and light nape patch, somewhat reminiscent of some tit
Tit
TIT, Tit., tit., Tit, or Tits may refer to:- Birds :* Tit , of the family Paridae, including tits, chickadees and titmice* Long-tailed tits, of the family Aegithalidae* Wrentit, of the family Sylviidae...
s and chickadees, especially those from the genera
Genera
Genera is a commercial operating system and development environment for Lisp machines developed by Symbolics. It is essentially a fork of an earlier operating system originating on the MIT AI Lab's Lisp machines which Symbolics had used in common with LMI and Texas Instruments...
Parus
Parus
Parus is a genus of Old World birds in the tit family. As defined here, it contains the following species:* Genus Parus** White-shouldered Tit Parus guineensis, sometimes separated in Melaniparus...
sensu stricto and Periparus
Periparus
Periparus is a genus of birds in the tit family that, as defined here, consists of the following species:*Rufous-naped Tit, Black-breasted Tit or Dark-grey Tit, Periparus rufonuchalis*Rufous-vented Tit, Periparus rubidiventris...
. The bill, legs and feet are black. Males and females look alike.
The voice is described as a plaintive whistling, cheep-cheep-cheep-cheep and it also has a two syllable finch
Finch
The true finches are passerine birds in the family Fringillidae. They are predominantly seed-eating songbirds. Most are native to the Northern Hemisphere, but one subfamily is endemic to the Neotropics, one to the Hawaiian Islands, and one subfamily – monotypic at genus level – is found...
-like call.
Systematics
Hume's Ground Tit was traditionally considered a relative of the ground jayGround jay
The ground jays or ground choughs belong to a distinct group of the passerine order of birds in the genus Podoces of the crow family Corvidae...
s (Podoces), based on its voice and habits. Its autapomorphies have certainly puzzled 20th century ornithologists, but due to its remote range and nondescript appearance, it was little studied and not suspected to be anything but an aberrant ground jay for more than 100 years after its description by Hume. In 1978 and 1989 however, two studies of its anatomy
Anatomy
Anatomy is a branch of biology and medicine that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy , and plant anatomy...
determined that – although at that time unassignable to any family
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...
due to its peculiar adaptations, it appeared that it was not a corvid but a more advanced songbird of the infraorder today known as Passerida
Passerida
Passerida is under the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy, one of two "parvorders" contained within the suborder Passeri...
.
From 2003 onwards, osteological, mtDNA and nDNA sequence
DNA sequence
The sequence or primary structure of a nucleic acid is the composition of atoms that make up the nucleic acid and the chemical bonds that bond those atoms. Because nucleic acids, such as DNA and RNA, are unbranched polymers, this specification is equivalent to specifying the sequence of...
and other biochemical data has firmly allied it with the tits and chickadees (Paridae). In fact, genetic evidence suggests that it is a closer relative of the Great Tit
Great Tit
The Great Tit is a passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. It is a widespread and common species throughout Europe, the Middle East, Central and Northern Asia, and parts of North Africa in any sort of woodland. It is generally resident, and most Great Tits do not migrate except in extremely...
and its relatives in the genus Parus sensu stricto than the chickadees and their relatives of the genus Poecile
Poecile
Poecile is a genus of bird in the tit family that is often lumped into the genus Parus. It has 13–15 species, which are scattered across North America, Europe and Asia; the North American species are the chickadees...
.
Ecology
It occurs across the Tibetan PlateauTibetan Plateau
The Tibetan Plateau , also known as the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau is a vast, elevated plateau in Central Asia covering most of the Tibet Autonomous Region and Qinghai, in addition to smaller portions of western Sichuan, southwestern Gansu, and northern Yunnan in Western China and Ladakh in...
of China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
and the neighboring areas of western Sichuan
Sichuan
' , known formerly in the West by its postal map spellings of Szechwan or Szechuan is a province in Southwest China with its capital in Chengdu...
and Gansu
Gansu
' is a province located in the northwest of the People's Republic of China.It lies between the Tibetan and Huangtu plateaus, and borders Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to the west, Sichuan to the south, and Shaanxi to the east...
. The Tibetan Ground-tit inhabits open alpine
Alpine climate
Alpine climate is the average weather for a region above the tree line. This climate is also referred to as mountain climate or highland climate....
steppe
Steppe
In physical geography, steppe is an ecoregion, in the montane grasslands and shrublands and temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biomes, characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes...
and sometimes more arid
Arid
A region is said to be arid when it is characterized by a severe lack of available water, to the extent of hindering or even preventing the growth and development of plant and animal life...
regions with small scattered shrubs, rarely if ever occurring lower than 3,000 meters above sea level
Above mean sea level
The term above mean sea level refers to the elevation or altitude of any object, relative to the average sea level datum. AMSL is used extensively in radio by engineers to determine the coverage area a station will be able to reach...
. It is not found anywhere where dense vegetation (especially trees) predominates. The flight of this bird is not strong and it flies low over the ground preferring to run or jump out of the way if approached which it does very quickly. It moves on the ground in unpredictable hops and bounces which can be quite long – jumps of three times the bird's length are achieved without assistance by the wings – rather than striding or running like Podoces ground jays. Observers have compared the sight of a Tibetan Ground-tit moving along to a small greyish-brown rubber ball
Bouncy ball
A bouncy ball, power ball or super ball is a popular polybutadiene rubber toy ball which rebounds proportionally to the amount of force used when thrown at a hard surface. The first such ball was the proprietary Super Ball. The Sky Ball is an example of another bouncy ball...
.
It obtains food on the ground, eating a wide range of arthropod
Arthropod
An arthropod is an invertebrate animal having an exoskeleton , a segmented body, and jointed appendages. Arthropods are members of the phylum Arthropoda , and include the insects, arachnids, crustaceans, and others...
prey, often obtained by probing Yak
Yak
The yak, Bos grunniens or Bos mutus, is a long-haired bovine found throughout the Himalayan region of south Central Asia, the Tibetan Plateau and as far north as Mongolia and Russia. In addition to a large domestic population, there is a small, vulnerable wild yak population...
(Bos grunniens) dung and turning it over to flush the prey out. It also peers into rock crevices and into holes in the ground in its search for food. Individuals have been observed to poke mud in and near puddle
Puddle
A puddle is a small accumulation of liquid, usually water, on a surface. It can form either by pooling in a depression on the surface, or by surface tension upon a flat surface...
s like Hoopoe
Hoopoe
The Hoopoe is a colourful bird that is found across Afro-Eurasia, notable for its distinctive 'crown' of feathers. It is the only extant species in the family Upupidae. One insular species, the Giant Hoopoe of Saint Helena, is extinct, and the Madagascar subspecies of the Hoopoe is sometimes...
s (Upupa epops); in general the bill is used extensively used for digging, much like the similarly-shaped one of the Red-billed Chough
Red-billed Chough
The Red-billed Chough or Chough , Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax, is a bird in the crow family; it is one of only two species in the genus Pyrrhocorax...
(Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax). If chased by a bird of prey
Bird of prey
Birds of prey are birds that hunt for food primarily on the wing, using their keen senses, especially vision. They are defined as birds that primarily hunt vertebrates, including other birds. Their talons and beaks tend to be relatively large, powerful and adapted for tearing and/or piercing flesh....
or other predator, it will bolt straight down the nearest hole like a rodent
Rodent
Rodentia is an order of mammals also known as rodents, characterised by two continuously growing incisors in the upper and lower jaws which must be kept short by gnawing....
until the danger has passed. They are frequently found near colonies of pika
Pika
The pika is a small mammal, with short limbs, rounded ears, and short tail. The name pika is used for any member of the Ochotonidae, a family within the order of lagomorphs, which also includes the Leporidae . One genus, Ochotona, is recognised within the family, and it includes 30 species...
s (Ochotona). Though the birds and the mammals probably benefit from each others' vigilance, their association is probably less due to a strong mutualism but rather because both prefer habitat
Habitat
* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...
with similar ground cover and soil
Soil
Soil is a natural body consisting of layers of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics...
.
The nest is rather unusual for that of a passerine
Passerine
A passerine is a bird of the order Passeriformes, which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds or, less accurately, as songbirds, the passerines form one of the most diverse terrestrial vertebrate orders: with over 5,000 identified species, it has roughly...
, being built inside a burrow which the birds excavate themselves. It is usually dug horizontally into a bank or wall of earth, and can reach a depth of 1.8 meters. The nest is placed at the end of this in a small chamber and consists usually just of bit of wool placed onto a grass base. The 4–6 egg
Egg (biology)
An egg is an organic vessel in which an embryo first begins to develop. In most birds, reptiles, insects, molluscs, fish, and monotremes, an egg is the zygote, resulting from fertilization of the ovum, which is expelled from the body and permitted to develop outside the body until the developing...
s are pure white and the young stay with their parents for some time after fledging; half-grown young are still fed by their parents on occasion as late as August.
Hume's Ground-tit is not a migratory bird but may descend lower altitudes in valleys during the winter. In addition to digging nesting burrows, ground-tits frequently dig roosting burrows to use during the coldest months.
External links
- Cyberbirding: Images of Hume's Ground Tits and their habitat