Myzomela kuehni Rothschild, 1903

The song of the new Alor Myzomela comprises two or three introductory notes followed by a main part characterized by a mean of 11.4 notes over 2 s (Fig. 4a). The pitch of the introductory notes (phonetically ‘wick’) rises from 4,800 to 6,430 Hz and then falls to 4,960 Hz, which is defined as an overslur; these introductory notes have a different struc- ture and are slightly lower-pitched than typical contact notes (Fig. 4a, c). The main part’s elements are high-pitched at 7,640 Hz with 0.13 s between notes (Table 2).

The song of the Wetar Myzomela comprises a mean of 21.8 rapidly produced high-pitched twittering notes without introductory notes (Table 2; Fig. 4b). The few song record- ings available had a similar structure but were highly vari- able in the number of notes. The small sample size available for songs of Wetar Myzomela made statistical comparisons problematic, but there were significant differences between Alor and Wetar Myzomela in maximum frequency and bandwidth (Table 2).

There were substantial statistically significant differences between calls of the Alor and Wetar myzomelas (Table 2). The Alor Myzomela produces single, high-pitched, smooth, overslurred (with falling then rising pitch) contact notes which can be phonetically transcribed as ‘tssip’ or ‘vick’. Note duration is ~ 0.1 s, beginning at 4220 Hz, ascending to 6620 Hz and then descending to 4990 Hz, with 2–2.5 s breaks between notes (Fig. 4c; Table 2). We detected some minor variation from this typical note structure which involved higher-pitched overslurs (producing a sharp inverted ‘v’ shape in sonograms) given as double notes at 5940–7370 Hz, and ‘N-shaped’ downslurs which initially rise to 6320 Hz, then descend to 4660 Hz and then rise slightly to 5000 Hz.

The Wetar Myzomela produces single, high-pitched, downslurred contact notes (first falling and then rising in pitch) which can be transcribed phonetically as ‘tsieuw’ or ‘teeyu’. Note duration is ~ 0.15 s, at a frequency beginning at 8870 Hz, descending to 4350 Hz, with 2.5–3.0 s breaks between notes (Fig. 4d).[1]

References