Black Headed Munias

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garymc
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Just last night I received 10 black-headed munia's from the eastern states. Looking at them this morning, they are very different in appearance than the four that I already owned.


Quite clearly the recents imports have a clearly defined black belly similar in area to a tri nun, whereas my original are clearly brown bellied.
Black_bellied01.jpg
Black_bellied02.jpg
Black_bellied03.jpg
Brown_bellied02.JPG
Seaching on youtube I came up with video of recently trapped birds:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7_SNQzu6p4

One of the comments by a viewer that the birds in my country have a much darker belly which generally supports my recent purchases.

Is it possible that we have at least two distinct subspecies here?
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Danny
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Within that video there are birds with black bellies and birds without. NPIAW describes them as having black bellies??
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arthur
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When I began keeping nuns back in the '70's, the old 'hardheads' advised me to keep either silver-headeds or tris as most of the
'black'-headeds were in fact hybrid black/ tri . . .

Why people would intentionally do this when all three types were readily available, I didn't even ponder

Possibly then, this was a fallacy initiated by the fact that are two subspecies . . . and looking at the clip both belly types are easily identifiable in the wild-caught sample

Possibly the old guys were correct in saying that they were hybrids; but the hyrids were actually light belly/ dark belly hybrids . . or simply light bellied AND dark bellied BH nun subspecies

On the other hand it is hard to imagine that the two separate subspecies would have randomly survived as such over the 50 or 60 years since the importation of these birds ceased, with nobody until now even suggesting that there are two subspecies . . . (although the black-headed 'hybrids' theory suggests that some have realised that the black-headeds were 'different' for quite some time)

I guess that it is a mystery that cannot really be solved beyond resonable doubt, this far down the track . . but it is an interesting discussion point
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E Orix
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Garry
There were some dead heads crossing the White Headed with the Black Headed and selling them off as Burmese Nuns(some time ago)
This crossing hurt the White Headed blood line badly and it started north of NSW but there were still some good specimens in Sth Aust which helped greatly and today there are some good birds around.Very very similar to the wild stock.It also affected the Black Head colour which became charcole or dark brown.
Today there are still examples of these around now.I have seen the Black Headed in the wild and they have a pure black head not dark brown.
Black Headed were crossed with the Tri Coloured and from memory lost or didn't get the white feathers on the body.
As for the brown on the belly and between the legs possibly a Tri/Black trait but hard to be sure.Personally I feel the true Black Headed does have the black belly. The extent of black wouldn't worry me as much as the birds must have a black head not dark brown.
The Black Headed has a massive range from mid China down to the bottom of Thailand,I even have a book on Indian birds and they have the Tri Coloured and Blacked Headed with the same Latin name so even reference books could be wrong as you don't know where the photos were taken.
The only chance are photos on Google etc that also has the location of where the photo was taken.Good luck.
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TomDeGraaff
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The black-headed and tri-coloured munias are considered by the ornithologists as subspecies. Restall's Mannikins and Munias book mentions this. Tri-colours should have a black belly I believe but the black-headed may have either a black or brown belly depending on the subspecies. I tend to agree with E orix that our stock are probably from the regions that have the black-bellied subspecies of BH nuns but it may in fact be formed from a mixture of subspecies - who's to say. Nonetheless, a black belly does not necessarily indicate tri nun blood.
I know a fellow who has been concentrating on these black-bellied birds as being distinct from the brown-bellied. He's from your old stomping ground, I think.
If it was me, I'd probably employ the Ghostbusters Rule: don't cross the streams !! :)
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Tiaris
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In pure BH Nuns the males have a blackish belly patch which very gradually diffuses into the surrounding dark brown areas. In pure hens this is far less pronounced. The ones pictured above have a fairly well delineated black patch surrounded by quite pale brown which is a clear indicator of hybrid Tri Nun genes (or subspecies hybrids if you prefer) & I'd hazard a guess the hens show the obvious black area too - if that's the case this would be the clincher. I wouldn't mix them with your purer ones if I were you.
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Danny
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Tiaris wrote:In pure BH Nuns the males have a blackish belly patch which very gradually diffuses into the surrounding dark brown areas. In pure hens this is far less pronounced. The ones pictured above have a fairly well delineated black patch surrounded by quite pale brown which is a clear indicator of hybrid Tri Nun genes (or subspecies hybrids if you prefer) & I'd hazard a guess the hens show the obvious black area too - if that's the case this would be the clincher. I wouldn't mix them with your purer ones if I were you.
It's not that simple. Pure wild birds can have very well delineated black. Have a flick through the 70 images on http://orientalbirdimages.org/search.ph ... pagesize=1 , the premier site for asian bird images and you'll see malacca malacca (tri) and both subspecies of black headed (black headed and chestnut munias). There is a mention in a couple of images that tris and black headeds were flying together as a flock.
I'd be keeping them separate and if the black bellied ones breed genuinely true to type then you can call them pure and the brown bellies, if they also breed true to type would be best referred to as Chestnut munias (not to confuse with Chestnut breasteds).
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Netsurfer
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If you scroll down to Lonchura species http://www.avitoon.nl/pages/mijnvogels_en.htm there's two subspecies of Tri-colored Munias one from India, the other from New Guinea (New Britain Mannikin), that I have never seen or heard off before. In the Clemet/Harris/Davis "Finches and Sparrows" on page 128 some of the Tri-nuns are apparently subspecies of Black-headed nuns and then on page 142 there is two subspecies of New Britain Mannikins. Unless you are really into Manias and Mannikins you would never know.
Black-headed Munia Lonchura malacca sinensis http://orientalbirdimages.org/search.ph ... y_ID=&p=18
and
Lonchura malacca atricapilla http://orientalbirdimages.org/search.ph ... y_ID=&p=20
are two different birds and then you have another the Great-billed Mannikin http://twearth.com/species/great-billed-mannikin

Similar as with the four species of Asian Greenfinches and the several European Greenfinch subspecies. I would separate them and breed them that way, don't keep them together even if you are unsure off what they are. :petrified:
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Tiaris
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It may not be that simple with various wild forms of the Chestnut Munia & yes there are a range of natural variations. As far as captive BH Nuns in Australia is concerned it really is that simple though. Many years ago in captive stock in Australia, most BH Nuns were kept as pure stock as were Tri Nuns & the examples shown & the examples in the above photos were not generally in our captive stock. The ones Gary has are as a result of captive hybrids of captive BH Nuns & captive Tri Nuns - It really is that simple.
The only place I know of where there are "wild" flocks of Tri colours and BHs together are in Hong Kong where one is native & the other introduced.
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Danny
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Tiaris wrote:It may not be that simple with various wild forms of the Chestnut Munia & yes there are a range of natural variations. As far as captive BH Nuns in Australia is concerned it really is that simple though. Many years ago in captive stock in Australia, most BH Nuns were kept as pure stock as were Tri Nuns & the examples shown & the examples in the above photos were not generally in our captive stock. The ones Gary has are as a result of captive hybrids of captive BH Nuns & captive Tri Nuns - It really is that simple.
The only place I know of where there are "wild" flocks of Tri colours and BHs together are in Hong Kong where one is native & the other introduced.
You are assuming only one type was ever present (which by your default was the brown bellied form) but the form that was naturalised in Australia was the black bellied form. By your argument, the naturalised birds were therefore all hybrids. You cannot be sure if his are hybrids or descendants of black bellied birds brought into this country or trapped from naturalised stock. If signs of impurity pop up down the track then you are right but if they don't and the types breed true then it is not unreasonable to say we have two types in this country.
If you flick through the images and read the notes, the mixed flock was in Rajarhat, east Kolkata, West Bengal, India.
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