The Desert Whitethroat (Sylvia minula) is a typical warbler

Typical warbler

The typical warblers are small birds belonging to the genus Sylvia in the "Old World warbler" family Sylviidae. There are 28 species currently included in the genus, including five species formerly treated in the genus Parisoma, a treatment which left Sylvia paraphyletic...

. Until recently, it was considered conspecific with the Lesser Whitethroat

Lesser Whitethroat

The Lesser Whitethroat is a common and widespread typical warbler which breeds in temperate Europe, except the southwest, and in western and central Asia. This small passerine bird is strongly migratory, wintering in Africa just south of the Sahara, Arabia and India.Unlike many typical warblers,...

; today these are seen as members of a superspecies

Superspecies

A superspecies is a group of at least two more or less distinctive species with approximately parapatric distributions. Not all species complexes, whether cryptices or ring species are superspecies, and vice versa, but many are...

. The Desert Whitethroat together with Hume's Whitethroat

Hume's Whitethroat

Hume's Whitethroat Sylvia althaea is a species of typical warbler. Until recently, it was considered conspecific with the Lesser Whitethroat; today these are seen as members of a superspecies which also includes the Desert Whitethroat...

 form an Asian lineage in the superspecies, which have diverged into species adapted to drier lowlands and moister mountain habitats respectively.
The name Small Whitethroat has also been used by some authors, and Desert Lesser Whitethroat before it was split from Lesser Whitethroat.

Description

It is distinguished from Hume's and Lesser Whitethroats by its smaller size (12 cm length, 8–13 g weight), smaller bill, the uniformly paler grey head lacking the well-marked dark cheeks of Hume's and Lesser Whitethroats, and a lighter grey-brown back; in these differences it follows Gloger's rule

Gloger's rule

Gloger's Rule is a zoological rule which states that within a species of endotherms, more heavily pigmented forms tend to be found in more humid environments, e.g. near the equator. It was named after the zoologist Constantin Wilhelm Lambert Gloger, who first remarked upon this phenomenon in 1833...

 of pale colour in arid regions. The throat is white, and the rest of the underparts pale greyish-white.

Taxonomy

Three subspecies

Subspecies

Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...

 are currently recognised, though some authors only accept the first two as distinct.

• Sylvia minula minula (syn. S. m. chuancheica). Western half of the species' range.
• Sylvia minula jaxartica (included in S. m. minula by some authors). Central part of the species' range.
• Sylvia minula margelanica. Eastern half of the species' range.

The presumed Lesser Whitethroat subspecies halimodendri and telengitica might actually belong to the Desert Whitethroat, or alternatively might represent hybrid intergrades between, respectively, S. m. jaxartica and S. m. margelanica and the Lesser Whitethroat.

Range and migration

Desert Whitethroat inhabits arid lowland regions from eastern Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

 and Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan , formerly also known as Turkmenia is one of the Turkic states in Central Asia. Until 1991, it was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic . Turkmenistan is one of the six independent Turkic states...

 eastwards to Xinjiang

Xinjiang

Xinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2...

 in central China, breeding in open dry thorn scrub. The breeding range does not overlap with Lesser Whitethroat, occurring to the southeast of that; it does overlap geographically with Hume's Whitethroat but is separated altitudinally. The Desert Whitethroat migrates

Bird migration

Bird migration is the regular seasonal journey undertaken by many species of birds. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat or weather. Sometimes, journeys are not termed "true migration" because they are irregular or in only one direction...

 south to the Arabian Peninsula

Arabian Peninsula

The Arabian Peninsula is a land mass situated north-east of Africa. Also known as Arabia or the Arabian subcontinent, it is the world's largest peninsula and covers 3,237,500 km2...

, southern Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

 and northwestern India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

in the winter, where it does overlap with wintering Lesser Whitethroat in many areas, and more locally with wintering Hume's Whitethroat.