Le Conte's Thrasher
Encyclopedia
The Le Conte's Thrasher (Toxostoma lecontei) is a pale bird found in the Southwestern United States
and northwestern Mexico
. It prefers to live in desert
s with very little vegetation
, where it blends in with the sandy soils. The palest of all thrasher
s, it grows to 28 cm (11 inches).
Le Conte's Thrasher is named for American
entomologist John Lawrence LeConte
.
Southwestern United States
The Southwestern United States is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah...
and northwestern Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. It prefers to live in desert
Desert
A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than...
s with very little vegetation
Vegetation
Vegetation is a general term for the plant life of a region; it refers to the ground cover provided by plants. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic characteristics. It is broader...
, where it blends in with the sandy soils. The palest of all thrasher
Thrasher
Thrashers are a New World group of passerine birds related to mockingbirds and New World catbirds. Like these, they are in the Mimidae family. There are 15 species in one large and 4 monotypic genera.These do not form a clade but are a phenetic assemblage...
s, it grows to 28 cm (11 inches).
Le Conte's Thrasher is named for American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
entomologist John Lawrence LeConte
John Lawrence LeConte
John Lawrence LeConte was the most important American entomologist of the 19th century, responsible for naming and describing approximately half of the insect taxa known in the United States during his lifetime, including some 5,000 species of beetles...
.
Book
- Sheppard, J. M. 1996. Le Conte’s Thrasher (Toxostoma lecontei). In The Birds of North America, No. 230 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, and The American Ornithologists’ Union, Washington, D.C.
Thesis
- Sheppard JM. M.A. (1973). AN INITIAL STUDY OF LE CONTE'S THRASHER (TOXOSTOMA LECONTEI). California State University, Long Beach, United States -- California.
Articles
- Brooks M. (1999). Effects of protective fencing on birds, lizards, and black-tailed hares in the Western Mojave Desert. Environmental Management. vol 23, no 3. pp. 387–400.
- Farnsworth A. (2001). WatchList species as viewed through the Christmas Bird Count database. American Birds. vol 102, pp. 29–31.
- Hill HO. (1980). Breeding Birds in a Desert Scrub Community in Southern Nevada USA. Southwestern Naturalist. vol 25, no 2. pp. 173–180.
- Patten MA, Erickson RA & Unitt P. (2004). Population changes and biogeographic affinities of the birds of the Salton Sink, California/Baja California. Studies in Avian Biology. vol 27, pp. 24–32.
- Rich T & Rothstein SI. (1985). Sage Thrashers Oreoscoptes-Montanus Reject Cowbird Molothrus-Ater Eggs. Condor. vol 87, no 4. pp. 561–562.
- Riddle BR & Hafner DJ. (2006). A step-wise approach to integrating phylogeographic and phylogenetic biogeographic perspectives on the history of a core North American warm deserts biota. Journal of Arid Environments. vol 66, no 3. pp. 435–461.
- Sheppard JM. (1970). A Study of the Le Contes Thrasher. California Birds. vol 1, no 3. pp. 85–94.
- Zink RM, Blackwell RC & Rojas-Soto O. (1997). Species limits in the Le Conte's thrasher. Condor. vol 99, no 1. pp. 132–138.
- Zink RM, Dittmann DL, Klicka J & Blackwell-Rago RC. (1999). Evolutionary patterns of morphometrics, allozymes, and mitochondrial DNA in thrashers (genus Toxostoma). Auk. vol 116, no 4. pp. 1021–1038.
- Zink RM, Kessen AE, Line TV & Blackwell-Rago RC. (2001). Comparative phylogeography of some aridland bird species. Condor. vol 103, no 1. pp. 1–10.