Family ESTRILDIDAE Bonaparte, 1850

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• Estrildidae Bonaparte, 1850.

Introduction

The Estrildidae are a polytypic, terrestrial and sometimes arboreal, group of small primarily granivorous birds. They are a variety of colour shades with patterns caused by lines, spots and barring. There appear to be two centres of distribution — Africa and Australia — but the family also occurs widely across Africa, Asia, Australo-Papua and the south-west Pacific island chains; it is absent from New Zealand (Goodwin 1982; Dickinson 2003). Australia has eight (31%) of the known 26 genera and 20 (15%) of the 130 world species; some 30 Australian ultrataxa are recognised. Four genera, Emblema, Stagonopleura, Poephila and Heteromunia, are endemic to the Australian continent. The number of subfamilies and the arrangement of genera within each follows the recent work of Olsson & Alström (2020).

Grass finches are primarily ground foragers, feeding by gleaning and pecking actions. They are gregarious and are communal breeders constructing domed nests. Nesting sites are placed in the outer canopies of trees or shrubs. Most nests are constructed of vegetable matter (grass or lengthy strips of leaves). Egg clutch numbers vary from two to seven. Egg colours are uniformly white, sometimes becoming lightly stained with colours from the nesting materials. Nests are often used after breeding as community roosting sites, with upwards of a dozen or so birds sheltering there, whereby these nests generally acquire a heavy deposit of faecal material.

Within Australia they are widespread across the continent and Tasmania but absent from Norfolk and Lord Howe Islands. Four species are shared with New Guinea (two Neochmia, one Erythrura, and one Lonchura), and one (Taeniopygia) occurs in Timor. The family appears to have adapted to occupy all major habitats where suitable seeding plants are present. While a number are local residents others of the family have well developed nomadic movements allowing them to follow either local or regional food fluctuations.

Excluded Taxa

Vagrant Species

CAVS:0817
ESTRILDIDAE: Lonchura (Munia) pallida (Wallace, 1863) [Pale-headed Munia; vagrant to Ashmore Reef] — Christidis, L. & Boles, W.E. 2008. Systematics and Taxonomy of Australian Birds. Melbourne : CSIRO Publishing 288 pp. [211]

Diagnosis

They have 'distinctive structural features; vestigial maxillo-palatine processes, variably shaped and often weakly winged medial palatine shelf, shortly divaricating wings at the tip of the vomer, vestigially toothed mandibular angle and partly ossified inter-nasal cavity' (Schodde & Mason 1999). The young also have remarkable, highly developed mouth markings, some having luminous gape-spots (Immelmann 1965).

Diagnosis References

Immelmann, K. 1965. Australian Finches in Bush and Aviary. Sydney : Angus & Robertson.

Schodde, R. & Mason, I.J. 1999. The Directory of Australian Birds : Passerines. A Taxonomic and Zoogeographic Atlas of the Biodiversity of Birds in Australia and its Territories. Collingwood, Australia : CSIRO Publishing x 851 pp.

General References

Dickinson, E.C. (ed.) 2003. The Howard & Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World. London : Christopher Helm 1039 pp.

Goodwin, D. 1982. Estrildid finches of the world. Oxford : British Museum (Natural History), London and Oxford University Press.

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