Mauritius grey white-eye

The Mauritius grey white-eye (Zosterops mauritianus) is a species of bird in the family Zosteropidae. It is one of two white-eye species endemic to the island of Mauritius, the other being the rare and localized Mauritius olive white-eye. It inhabits woodlands, forests, and gardens. The Réunion grey white-eye is very closely related. They were formerly considered conspecific and together called Mascarene white-eye.

Mauritius grey white-eye
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Zosteropidae
Genus:	Zosterops
Species:	Z. mauritianus
Binomial name
Zosterops mauritianus (Gmelin, JF, 1789)
Range highlighted in red
Synonyms
Speirops borbonicus mauritianus

Taxonomy

The Mauritius grey white-eye was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the wagtails in the genus Motacilla and coined the binomial name Motacilla mauritiana.^[1] Gmelin based his account on the "Figuier bleu" that had been described in 1778 by the French polymath, the Comte de Buffon, in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. A hand-coloured engraving by François-Nicolas Martinet was published to accompany Buffon's text.^[2][3] The Mauritius grey white-eye is now placed with around one hundred white-eyes in the genus Zosterops that was introduced in 1827 by Nicholas Vigors and Thomas Horsfield.^[4]

Gallery

• 
  A pair at Ramgoolam Botanical Garden
• 
  At the Black River estuary
• 
  View of the white tail coverts
• 
  Collecting nesting material

References

1. Gmelin, Johann Friedrich (1789). Systema naturae per regna tria naturae : secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis (in Latin). Vol. 1, Part 2 (13th ed.). Lipsiae [Leipzig]: Georg. Emanuel. Beer. p. 981.
2. Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc de (1778). "Le Figuier Bleu". Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux (in French). Vol. 5. Paris: De l'Imprimerie Royale. p. 282.
3. Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc de; Martinet, François-Nicolas; Daubenton, Edme-Louis; Daubenton, Louis-Jean-Marie (1765–1783). "Figuier, de l'isle de France". Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle. Vol. 8. Paris: De L'Imprimerie Royale. Plate 705, Fig. 1.
4. Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (July 2023). "Sylviid babblers, parrotbills, white-eyes". IOC World Bird List Version 13.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 11 August 2023.