Song characteristics of Oriental Cuckoo Cuculus optatus and Himalayan Cuckoo Cuculus saturatus and implications for taxonomy and distribution
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Animal Behavior, Taxonomy, Zoology
- Keywords
- Oriental cuckoo, Himalayan cuckoo, song variation, distribution, taxonomy
- Copyright
- © 2015 Xia et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2015. Song characteristics of Oriental Cuckoo Cuculus optatus and Himalayan Cuckoo Cuculus saturatus and implications for taxonomy and distribution. PeerJ PrePrints 3:e1231v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.1231v1
Abstract
Song features during the breeding season are important for determining classifications. Whether Oriental Cuckoo Cuculus optatus and Himalayan Cuckoo C. saturatus inhabiting the Palearctic and Oriental realms respectively can be distinguished according to song characteristics is uncertain. In this study, we performed a thorough investigation of the song characteristics of these taxa by collecting and analyzing recordings of song in their areas of distribution. We found that these cuckoos could be divided into two groups based on the number of notes in their songs. In addition, we observed significant differences in song duration and frequencies such that these two species could be clearly distinguished based on discriminant analysis of song features. Songs of Oriental cuckoos had two notes, whereas songs of Himalayan cuckoos had more than two notes. Thus, our data supported the separation of the two species based on their song features. The areas of distribution of the two species are thus refined, with Oriental Cuckoo distributed in Northeast China, Xinjiang in northwest China, Japan and Russia, and Himalayan Cuckoo distributed in the Himalayas through central and northern China to northeast Hebei, and the northern part of southeast Asia (Guangxi, China). The taxonomic status of birds in Taiwan indicates a closer relationship to C. optatus, which is contrary to the prevailing interpretation and requires further study.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.
Supplemental Information
Recordings used in this study and original measurement data
Table S1 Recordings used in this study and original measurement data Recordings reserved by Beijing Normal University or Geoff J. Carey can be downloaded from Data S1. Other recordings can be downloaded from online databases (Macaulay Library [http://macaulaylibrary.org], Xeno-canto [http://www.xeno-canto.org], and AVoCet: Avian Vocalizations Center [http://avocet.zoology.msu.edu]).
Data S1 Recordings from our own data used in this study
Data S1 Cuckoo's Recordings from our own data used in this studySee Table S1 for location and measurement data of these recordings.