Hill Mynas Gracula have a wide distribution range covering all of Southeast Asia. They became a popular cage bird due to their ability to mimic human speech. Massive demand had a tragic impact on the wild populations of Hill Mynas throughout their range. Since the first description of the species there have been significant discrepancies in the classification. Continuous pressure on the wild populations caused an urgent need of conservation attention in many places, which was hindered by taxonomical uncertainties. Decades of specialists disagreements caused crossbreeding of mynas from different areas and thus disappearance of their typical characteristics. The only possible way for taxonomic revision has become a field research. This research was focused on the taxonomic revision of the Common Hill Myna Gracula religiosa in Sumatra and its nearby islands, where the highest diversity of the genus taxa occurs. The aim was to evaluate the current situation of the wild populations and to collect the largest possible set of morphometric information. The analyses uncovered that studied taxa are all clearly distinguishable. Taxon miotera from the island of Simeulue, oftenly overlooked in literature, showed the largest differences as well as taxon robusta from Nias. If taxon robusta is recognised a full species, miotera should be upgraded to a species level as well. Mynas from the additional two locations show differences too and are both clearly distinguishable from the others. The differences dont show such significance to treat these taxa as species without further combination of morphometry and genetics. A surviving population of the Nias Hill Myna Gracula (r.) robusta, last recorded by scientists in 1939 was found during this research as well as acoustic evidence of taxon miotera from Simeulue which was also identified as possibly extinct.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:nusl.cz/oai:invenio.nusl.cz:315879 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Švejcarová, Tereza |
| Contributors | Kopecký, Oldřich, Petr, Petr |
| Publisher | Česká zemědělská univerzita v Praze |
| Source Sets | Czech ETDs |
| Language | Czech |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesis |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess |
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