Animalia > Chordata > Aves > Passeriformes > Muscicapidae > Oenanthe > Oenanthe melanura

Oenanthe melanura (Blackstart)

Synonyms: Cercomela melanura

Wikipedia Abstract

The blackstart (Cercomela melanura) is a chat found in desert regions in North Africa, the Middle East and the Arabian Peninsula. It is a 14–16 cm long bird named for its black tail, which is frequently fanned; the rest of its plumage is bluish-grey or grey-brown (North African races being browner, Middle Eastern races bluer). The sexes are similar, but the male on average has blacker lores. The song is a clear melancholy whistle: CHURlee...TRUloo...CHURlee...TRUlur..., with short phrases from the song used as a call. The blackstart is a confident species, unafraid of man.
View Wikipedia Record: Oenanthe melanura

Infraspecies

Oenanthe melanura airensis
Oenanthe melanura aussae
Oenanthe melanura lypura
Oenanthe melanura melanura
Oenanthe melanura neumanni
Oenanthe melanura ultima

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
2
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
18
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 6.06968
EDGE Score: 1.95581
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  15 grams
Birth Weight [2]  2.3 grams
Diet [3]  Carnivore (Invertebrates), Frugivore
Diet - Fruit [3]  20 %
Diet - Invertibrates [3]  80 %
Forages - Ground [3]  100 %
Clutch Size [5]  4
Incubation [4]  13 days
Mating Display [2]  Non-acrobatic aerial display

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Name IUCN Category Area acres Location Species Website Climate Land Use
Dana Wildlife Reserve IV   Jordan  
Mujib Nature Reserve Wildlife Reserve IV   Jordan
Wadi Rum Protected Area National Park V   Jordan  

Important Bird Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Horn of Africa Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Oman, Somalia, Yemen No
Japan Japan No
Mountains of Central Asia Afghanistan, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan No

Prey / Diet

Lycium shawii[4]

Prey / Diet Overlap

Competing SpeciesCommon Prey Count
Hypocolius ampelinus (Hypocolius)1
Sylvia leucomelaena (Arabian Warbler)1
Sylvia nana (Asian Desert Warbler)1

Predators

Asio otus (Long-eared Owl)[6]

Range Map

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 2Terje Lislevand, Jordi Figuerola, and Tamás Székely. 2007. Avian body sizes in relation to fecundity, mating system, display behavior, and resource sharing. Ecology 88:1605
♦ 3Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 4del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
♦ 5Jetz W, Sekercioglu CH, Böhning-Gaese K (2008) The Worldwide Variation in Avian Clutch Size across Species and Space PLoS Biol 6(12): e303. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060303
♦ 6Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0