Sardinian warbler
The Sardinian warbler is a common and widespread Sylviidae warbler from the Mediterranean region. Like most Curruca species, it has distinct male and female plumages. The adult male has a grey back, whitish underparts, black head, white throat and red eyes. Plumages are somewhat variable even in the same locality, with the intensity of a reddish hue on upper- and/or underside that varies from absent to pronounced. The female is mainly brown above and buff below, with a grey head. The Sardinian warbler's song is fast and rattling, and is very characteristic of the Mediterranean areas where this bird breeds.
Taxonomy and systematics
The Sardinian warbler was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the wagtails in the genus Motacilla and coined the binomial name Motacilla melanocephala. Gmelin based his entry on a description by the Italian zoologist Francesco Cetti in his book Gli uccelli di Sardegna that was published in 1776. This was the second volume of his Storia naturale di Sardegna. Cetti did not use scientific names for the species. When a translation of Cetti's three volumes were published in German, the translator, David Piesch, and the editor, Nathanael Gottfried Leske, included an Appendix at the end of the third volume in which they proposed the binomial name Motacilla melanocephala, the identical name that was later adopted by Gmelin. In spite of this earlier publication, as of 2023 Gmelin is treated as the authority for the species.The species was formerly placed in the genus Sylvia that was introduced in 1769 by the Italian naturalist Giovanni Antonio Scopoli. The genus name is from Modern Latin silvia, a woodland sprite, related to silva, a wood. The specific melanocephala is from Ancient Greek melas, "black", and kephale, "head". Currently, the Sardinian warbler is placed in the genus Curruca by the IOC, along with most of the species formerly classified in the genus Sylvia.
Together with Menetries's warbler the Sardinian warbler forms a superspecies. Both have white malar areas and light throats, and otherwise black heads in adult males, as well as a naked ring around the eye. The eastern subalpine warbler, which seems the superspecies' closest relative, has a dark throat and breast and a dark gray upper head in males, but otherwise shares these characters. These three species are related to a dark-throated superspecies consisting of Rüppell's warbler and the Cyprus warbler, which also share the white malar area with blackish above.
This bird may be considered a superspecies, divided into the western Curruca melanocephala and Curruca momus from the more arid regions of the Near East and adjacent Africa.