The double-banded courser (Smutsornis africanus), also known as the two-banded courser, is a species of bird in the family Glareolidae. It was formerly placed in the genus Rhinoptilus but is now the only species placed in the genus Smutsornis.
The double-banded courser was formally described in 1807 as Cursorius africanus by the Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck. The specimen had been collected by François Levaillant in Namaqualand on the west coast of southern Africa.[2][3] This species was formerly placed in the genus Rhinoptilus. A 2022 molecular genetic study by David Cerný and Rossy Natale found that the double-banded courser diverged genetically from the other species in Rhinoptilus.[4] The species was therefore moved to the resurrected genus Smutsornis that had been introduced in 1922 by South African zoologist Austin Roberts.[5][6] The genus name combines the name of the South African statesman Jan Smuts with the Ancient Greek ορνις/ornis, ορνιθος/ornithos meaning "bird".[7]
S. a. traylori (Irwin, MPS, 1963) – northwestern Botswana (Makgadikgadi system) and western Zimbabwe
S. a. africanus (Temminck, CJ, 1807) – Namibia (except northwest), western and southern Botswana, and northwestern South Africa (northern Northern Cape)
The bird's crown is pale and streaked with brown/black feathers. A narrow black stripe extends from the base of the bill, through the eye to the nape. The cheeks, chin, throat and neck are buff/white flecked with dark brown. The feather of the back and wing coverts are sandy brown with dark centres and broadly edged with white/buff. The short bill is blackish, eyes are dark brown and the legs and feet are pale grey.[8]
Distribution and habitat
The double-banded courser is found in Ethiopia, Somalia, South Africa, and Tanzania. The bird is widespread enough to have practically no chance of becoming endangered or extinct.[9] The double-banded courser lives and breeds in flat, stony or gravelly, semi-desert terrains with firm, sandy soil and tufty grass or thorn scrub.[10]
Behaviour
Breeding
Double-banded coursers breed in monogamous pairs. Breeding begins after a mating dance where the male dances in semicircles around the female. The female then lays one egg, which the parents take hour-long shifts incubating. After about twenty-five days, the egg hatches.[11] The chicks leave the nest within 24 hours of hatching, although staying close to the nest until 3–4 days old, at which point it joins its parents. Both adults feed the chick with small insects until it becomes self-providing at about 5–6 weeks old.
↑ Temminck, Coenraad Jacob (1807). Catalogue systématique du cabinet d'ornithologie et de la collection de quadrumanes (in French and Latin). Amsterdam: Chez C. Sepp Jansz. pp.175, 263-264.
↑ Černý, David; Natale, Rossy (2022). "Comprehensive taxon sampling and vetted fossils help clarify the time tree of shorebirds (Aves, Charadriiformes)". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 177 107620. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2022.107620.
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