About Prinia polychroa (Temminck, 1828)
The brown prinia, with the scientific name Prinia polychroa, is a bird species that belongs to the Cisticolidae family. Two related species, the Burmese prinia (Prinia cooki) and the Annam prinia (Prinia rocki), were previously grouped together as part of this species. Currently, this species is found in mainland Southeast Asia, specifically across most of Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia, in addition to the Indonesian island of Java. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical dry forest. Populations that were once included in this species from Myanmar, far western Thailand, far western Laos, and southern China are now classified as P. cooki, while populations from Vietnam's Đà Lạt Plateau and far eastern Cambodia are now classified as P. rocki. Two subspecies of Prinia polychroa are currently recognized: P. p. deignani, which is distributed across Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia, and P. p. polychroa, which is found only on Java. Before a 2019 taxonomic study, P. p. deignani was considered an eastern population of P. p. cooki (when P. cooki was treated as a subspecies rather than a full species). The 2019 study split the Burmese and south Chinese populations into the full species P. cooki, and reclassified the populations from Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia as the new subspecies P. p. deignani. Another taxon, P. crinigera bangsi, which is currently recognized as a subspecies of the Himalayan prinia (P. crinigera), was also previously treated as a south Chinese subspecies of P. polychroa under the name P. p. bangsi before the 2019 study. The subspecies P. p. deignani was named after American ornithologist Herbert Girton Deignan.
