The long-tailed shrike or rufous-backed shrike (Lanius schach) is a member of the bird family Laniidae, the shrikes. They are found widely distributed across Asia and there are variations in plumage across the range. The species ranges across much of Asia, both on the mainland and the eastern archipelagos. The eastern or Himalayan subspecies, L. s. tricolor, is sometimes called the black-headed shrike. Although there are considerable differences in plumage among the subspecies, they all have a long and narrow black tail, have a black mask and forehead, rufous rump and flanks and a small white patch on the shoulder. It is considered to form a superspecies with the grey-backed shrike (Lanius tephronotus) which breeds on the Tibetan Plateau.
Taxonomy
The long-tailed shrike was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Lanius schach. Linnaeus cited the description that the Swedish explorer Pehr Osbeck had included in the account of his stay in China. The type locality is the Canton area of China. The genus name, Lanius, is derived from the Latin word for "butcher", and some shrikes are also known as "butcher birds" because of their feeding habits. The specific schach is an onomatopoeic name based on the call. The common English name "shrike" is from Old English scríc, "shriek", referring to the shrill call.
Nine subspecies are recognised:
L. s. erythronotus (Vigors, 1831) – south Kazakhstan to northeast Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and north-central India L. s. caniceps Blyth, 1846 – west, central, south India and Sri Lanka L. s. tricolor Hodgson, 1837 – Nepal and east India through Myanmar and south China to north Laos and north Thailand L. s. schach Linnaeus, 1758 – central, southeast China to north Vietnam L. s. longicaudatus Ogilvie-Grant, 1902 – central, southeast Thailand and south Laos L. s. bentet Horsfield, 1821 – Malay Peninsula, Greater and Lesser Sundas and Borneo L. s. nasutus Scopoli, 1786 – Philippines (except Palawan group and Sulu Archipelago) L. s. suluensis (Mearns, 1905) – Sulu Archipelago (south Philippines) L. s. stresemanni Mertens, 1923 – montane east New Guinea
Stuart Baker in the second edition of The Fauna of British India considered Lanius schach, Lanius tephronotus and Lanius tricolor as three species. He considered nigriceps as synonymous with tricolor and included erythronotus as a race of schach. Other treatments were proposed by Hugh Whistler and N B Kinnear where tephronotus was considered a subspecies of schach and nigriceps and nasutus grouped together. Another treatment considered tricolor as a subspecies of L. tephronotus. It was subsequently however noted that tephronotus and schach co-occurred in the Kumaon region and so the two were confirmed as distinct species. Molecular distances also indicate that they are distant enough. The erythronotus group have a grey head which continues into the back with a gradual suffusion of rufous. The westernmost population from Transcaspia named by Sergei Buturlin as jaxartensis and said to be larger, is not considered valid. A very light grey form from western dry region of India named by Walter Koelz as kathiawarensis is also considered merely as a variant. In southern India and Sri Lanka, subspecies caniceps, is marked by the rufous restricted to the rump, light crown and the pure grey on the back. Biswamoy Biswas supported the view that nigriceps (having upper mantle grey and lower mantle rufous) was a hybrid of tricolor and erythronotus.
Subspecies longicaudatus has a greyer crown and is found in Thailand and Burma. The nominate subspecies is found in China from the Yangtze valley south to Hainan and Taiwan. Some individuals of the nominate form show melanism and were once described as a species fuscatus. Island forms include nasutus (Philippine Islands from Mindanao to Luzon and north Borneo), suluensis (Sulu Island), bentet (Sunda Islands and Sumatra other than Borneo) and stresemanni of New Guinea.
