Swinhoe's white-eye (Zosterops simplex) is a bird species in the white-eye family Zosteropidae. It is found in east China, Taiwan, north Vietnam, the Thai-Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Borneo. Populations have also been introduced throughout Southern California.
Swinhoe's white-eye was formally described in 1861 by the English naturalist Robert Swinhoe and given the binomial name Zosterops simplex.[1] The genus Zosterops had been introduced by the naturalists Nicholas Vigors and Thomas Horsfield in 1827.[2] The genus name combines the Ancient Greek words zōstēros meaning "belt" or "girdle" and ōpos meaning "eye". The specific epithet simplex is Latin meaning "simple" or "plain".[3]
This species was formerly treated as a subspecies group of the warbling white-eye (Zosterops japonicus) but based on the results of a molecular phylogenetic study published in 2018, it was promoted to species rank.[4][5]
Five subspecies are recognised:[5]
Swinhoe's white-eye (Zosterops simplex) is a bird species in the white-eye family Zosteropidae. It is found in east China, Taiwan, north Vietnam, the Thai-Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Borneo. Populations have also been introduced throughout Southern California.
