Japanese tit

Japanese tit
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Paridae
Genus:	Parus
Species:	P. minor
Binomial name
Parus minor Temminck & Schlegel, 1848
Distributions of Parus minor (blue-green) and Parus major (orange-red)

The Japanese tit (Parus minor), also known as the Oriental tit, is a passerine bird which replaces the similar great tit in Japan and the Russian Far East beyond the Amur River, including the Kuril Islands. Until recently, this species was classified as a subspecies of great tit (Parus major), but studies indicated that the two species coexist in the Russian Far East without intermingling or frequent hybridization.^[1]

The species made headlines in March 2016, when Suzuki et al^[2] reported in Nature Communications that they had found experimental evidence for compositional syntax in bird calls, marking the first such evidence for that type of syntax in nonhuman animals.^[2]

References

1. Päckert, M.; Martens, J.; Eck, S.; Nazarenko, A. A.; Valchuk, O. P.; Petri, B.; Veith, M. (2005). "The great tit (Parus major) – a misclassified ring species". Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 86 (2): 153. doi:10.1111/j.1095-8312.2005.00529.x.
2. Suzuki, TN; et al., "Experimental evidence for compositional syntax in bird calls", Nature Communications 7: 10986, doi:10.1038/ncomms10986.

External links

• Japanese tit at Avibase