Thick-billed weaver
| Thick-billed weaver | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Male in Pretoria, South Africa | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Passeriformes |
| Family: | Ploceidae |
| Genus: | Amblyospiza Sundevall, 1850 |
| Species: | A. albifrons |
| Binomial name | |
| Amblyospiza albifrons (Vigors, 1831) | |
The thick-billed weaver or grosbeak weaver (Amblyospiza albifrons) is a distinctive and bold species of weaver bird that is native to the Afrotropics. It is monotypic within the genus Amblyospiza.[2] They have particularly strong mandibles, which are employed to extricate the seeds in nutlets and drupes, and their songs are comparatively unmusical and harsh. Their colonial nests are readily distinguishable from those of other weavers, due to their form and placement, and the fine strands used in their construction.
Range
It has a patchy distribution in West, East and southern Africa,[3] where it is present in marshes, uplands, suburban areas and artificial wetlands.
It is found in Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, CAR, Republic of the Congo, DRC, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.[1]
Races
There are five accepted races:[4]
- A. a. capitalba (Bonaparte, 1850) – discontinuously from se Guinea to s CAR and nw Angola
- A. a. melanota (Heuglin, 1863) – South Sudan and s Ethiopia, through the rift valley and adjacent lowlands to nw Tanzania
- A. a. montana van Someren, 1921 – Kenyan and Tanzanian interior, se DRC to Malawi and Okavango Basin
- A. a. unicolor (G.A.Fischer & Reichenow, 1878) – East coast littoral from s Somalia to Zanzibar and Pemba islands.
- A. a. albifrons (Vigors, 1831) – e Zimbabwe and c Mozambique, southwards to e South Africa
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Nest built in an exotic bamboo species
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Female feeding on nettle nutlets in an upland region
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_juvenile_(12929741175).jpg)
Immature bird showing yellow mandibles
References
- 1 2 BirdLife International (2012). "Amblyospiza albifrons". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.2. International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved 26 November 2013.
- ↑ "ITIS Report: Amblyospiza". Integrated Taxonomic Information System. Retrieved 14 March 2013.
- ↑ "Amblyospiza albifrons (Thick-billed weaver)". Biodiversity Explorer. Iziko Museums. Retrieved 30 March 2016.
- ↑ "Thick-billed Weaver (Amblyospiza albifrons) - HBW 15, p. 138". Weavers (Ploceidae). The Internet Bird Collection. Retrieved 1 April 2016.
External links
- Thick-billed weaver - Species text in The Atlas of Southern African Birds.
- Thick-billed weaver on Weaver Watch
Media related to Amblyospiza albifrons at Wikimedia Commons