The Sangihe White-eye is a species of bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

 in the white-eye

White-eye

White-eye can refer to:*White-eye , a large family of birds.*White-eye , a species of fish.*White-eye mutation, a mutation in Drosophila melanogaster linked to the X chromosome, found by reciprocal cross breeding experiments in 1906.*A lioness member of the Marsh Pride of lions that have featured...

 family. It is endemic to Sangihe, Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

.

Its natural habitat

Habitat

* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...

 is subtropical or tropical moist montane

Montane

In biogeography, montane is the highland area located below the subalpine zone. Montane regions generally have cooler temperatures and often have higher rainfall than the adjacent lowland regions, and are frequently home to distinct communities of plants and animals.The term "montane" means "of the...

s. It is threatened by habitat loss.

It was formerly considered conspecific with Black-crowned White-eye

Black-crowned White-eye

The Black-crowned White-eye is a songbird species. It is closely related to the Old World babblers, and its family Zosteropidae might better be included in the Tiimalidae. Its subspecies from the Sulawesi region might warrant recognition as distinct species Z. subatrifrons. The Sangihe White-eye ...

 (Zosterops atrifrons) , but work by Pamela C. Rasmussen

Pamela C. Rasmussen

Professor Pamela Cecile Rasmussen is a prominent American ornithologist and expert on Asian birds. She was formerly a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., and is based at the Michigan State University...

 and her colleagues showed that it is a separate species. The same research also confirmed the specific status of the Seram White-eye

Seram White-eye

The Seram White-eye, Zosterops stalkeri, is a small passerine bird in the white-eye family. It is an endemic resident breeder in open woodland in Seram, Indonesia....

, Zosterops stalkeri.

External links

• Birdlife.org, BirdLife Species Factsheet.