Canary Islands Stonechat - Taxonomy

Taxonomy

The Canary Islands Stonechat is a small passerine bird that was classed as a member of the thrush family Turdidae, but is now more generally considered to be an Old World flycatcher in the Muscicapidae. It, and similar small European species, are often called chats. It was included in the "Common Stonechat" (Saxicola torquata), but it is quite distinct; it is likely to be an insular derivative of ancestral European Stonechats that colonised the islands some 1-2 mya, during the Early Pleistocene (Wink et al. 2002).