Pilotbird

SCI Name:  Pycnoptilus floccosus
Protonym:  Pycnoptilus floccosus Proc.Zool.Soc.London(1850) (1850), Pt18 no.206 p.95
Taxonomy:  Passeriformes / Acanthizidae / Pycnoptilus
Taxonomy Code:  pilotb1
Type Locality:  New South Wales = Blue Mountains, fide Mathews, 1921, Birds Australia, 9, p. 220.
Author:  Gould
Publish Year:  1851
IUCN Status:  Least Concern

DEFINITIONS

PYCNOPTILUS
(Acanthizidae; Ϯ Pilotbird P. floccosus) Gr. πυκνος puknos  thick; πτιλον ptilon  feather; "Judging from its very thick clothing and overhanging back-feathers, I conclude that, like the members of the genus Dasyornis, it is a frequenter of the ground in dense and scrubby places" (Gould 1865); "It lives in the same dense forest undergrowth as the lyrebird and its name derives from their being found together, but perhaps more by accident than design" (Macdonald 1973); "Leaving America and India, and proceeding to Australia, I return to a country which has so long engaged my attention, to characterize a new genus of small creeping Insessorial Birds, nearly allied to the genera Hylacola and Dasyornis, under the name of Pycnoptilus, of which at present only a single specimen is known, and to which I beg to assign the specific name of floccosa; it is from New South Wales and the country towards the river Darling.   Genus PYCNOPTILUS.  Gen. Char.—Bill much shorter than the head; gonys and culmen gradually descending; upper mandible notched at the tip; nostrils covered with a distinct operculum; base of the bill beset with very fine feeble hairs; wings very short, round and concave, the sixth primary the longest; tail short, rounded, feathers very broad and of a soft texture; tarsi strong, and somewhat lengthened compared with the size of the bird; hind-toe strong, and armed with a rather long claw; fore toes and nails rather feeble, the outer and inner toes of equal length; plumage dense, lengthened and silky, especially on the flanks.   PYCNOPTILUS FLOCCOSUS.  ...  This form is somewhat allied to Atrichia, Hylacola and Dasyornis, but differs from all those genera in several particulars." (Gould 1851); "Pycnoptilus Gould, 1851, Proc. Zool. Soc. London (1850), p. 95. Type, by monotypy, Pycnoptilus floccosus Gould." (Mayr in Peters 1986, XI, 410).

floccosus
L. floccosus  woolly, full of flocks of wool  < floccus  flock of wool (see Pycnoptilus).

SUBSPECIES

Pilotbird (sandlandi)
SCI Name: Pycnoptilus floccosus sandlandi
sandlandi
Philip Thomas Sandland (1882-?1970) Australian stock-farmer, naturalist, collector (syn. Acanthiza chrysorrhoa leighi, subsp. Pycnoptilus floccosus).

Pilotbird (floccosus)
SCI Name: Pycnoptilus floccosus floccosus
floccosus
L. floccosus  woolly, full of flocks of wool  < floccus  flock of wool (see Pycnoptilus).