The Indonesian island of Sulawesi, a globally important hotspot of avian endemism, has been relatively poorly studied ornithologically, to the extent that several new bird species from the region have been described to science only recently, and others have been observed and photographed, but never before collected or named to science. One of these is Muscicapa sodhii, a new species of flycatcher that has been observed on several occasions since 1997. Harris et al. 2014 collected two specimens in Central Sulawesi in 2012, and based on a combination of morphological, vocal and genetic characters, described Muscicapa sodii as a new species more than 15 years after the first observations.
Muscicapa sodhii is superficially similar to the highly migratory, boreal-breeding Gray-streaked Flycatcher Muscicapa griseisticta, which winters in Sulawesi; however, the new species differs strongly from M. griseisticta in several morphological characters, song, and mtDNA. Based on mtDNA, the new species is only distantly related to M. griseisticta, instead being a member of the M. dauurica clade. Muscicapa sodhii tends to forage in the forest mid-levels and subcanopy.
(From Harris et al. 2014)
Rights Holder: Harris et al. 2014
