Indian white-eye
species of bird
The Indian white-eye (Zosterops palpebrosus), formerly the Oriental white-eye, is a small species of passerine bird in the white-eye family. It is a resident breeder in open woodland on the Indian subcontinent. They forage in small groups, feeding on nectar and small insects. The distinctive white eye-ring and overall yellowish upperparts easily identify them. The range previously extended eastwards to Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Their name was recently changed because previous members of Zosterops palpebrosus in Southeast Asia were reclassified as a new species, making the Indian White-eye a more geographically accurate term for this species.
Taxonomy
The Indian white-eye was described by the Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck in 1824, based on a specimen collected in Bengal. He coined the binomial name Sylvia palpebrosa. The English and scientific names refer to the conspicuous ring of white feathers round the eyes, palpebrosus being Neo-Latin for "having prominent eyelids", from the Latin palpebrae "eyelids".
The English name of this species was changed from "Oriental white-eye" to "Indian white-eye" to more accurately reflect the geographic range following the reorganisation of the taxa with the introduction of Hume's white-eye (Zosterops auriventer), the warbling white-eye (Zosterops japonicus) and Swinhoe's white-eye (Zosterops simplex).
The public source identifies “Indian white-eye” as species of bird. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Indian, white-eye and species.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q795545. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1824.
Scientific names, classifications and consensus can change while older terminology persists in catalogues and historical literature. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Indian white-eye” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.