Laniarius

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Laniarus
Laniarius barbarus.jpg
Yellow-crowned gonolek
Laniarius barbarus
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Malaconotidae
Genus: Laniarius
Vieillot, 1816
Type species
Lanius barbarus
Linnaeus, 1766
Species

see text

Laniarius is a genus of brightly coloured, carnivorous passerine birds commonly known as boubous or gonoleks. Not to be confused with the similar-sounding genus Lanius , they were formerly classed with the true shrikes in the family Laniidae, but they and related genera are now considered sufficiently distinctive to be separated from that group as the bush-shrike family Malaconotidae.

This is an African group of species which are found in scrub or open woodland. They are similar in habits to shrikes, hunting insects and other small prey from a perch on a bush. Although similar in build to the shrikes, these tend to be either colourful species or largely black. Some species are also quite secretive.

Taxonomy and systematics

The genus Laniarius was introduced by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1816 to accommodate a single species, the yellow-crowned gonolek, which is therefore the type species. [1] [2]

The closest relatives of the genus appear to be the genus Chlorophoneus . Previously, members of the genus Laniarius had been classified on the basis of plumage. However, a 2008 molecular study found that the species had developed different colours and patterns in plumage independently and similar-coloured species were often unrelated. The authors hypothesized that the ancestor of the genus may have been dark-coloured. [3]

There are 22 recognised species: [4]

ImageCommon NameScientific nameDistribution
Lowland sooty boubou Laniarius leucorhynchusAngola, Benin, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Togo, and Uganda.
Mountain sooty boubou Laniarius poensisNigeria, Bioko; Rwanda, Burundi and adjacent areas of Uganda and Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Albertine sooty boubou Laniarius holomelasUganda and Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Willard’s sooty boubou Laniarius willardiBurundi and Uganda
Fuelleborn's boubou Laniarius fuelleborniMalawi, Tanzania, and Zambia
Slate-colored Boubou, Serengeti.jpg Slate-colored boubou Laniarius funebrisEthiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Luhder's Bushshrike.jpg Lühder's bushshrike Laniarius luehderiAngola, Burundi, Cameroon, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Braun's bushshrike Laniarius brauniAngola
Gabela bushshrike Laniarius amboimensisAngola.
Red-naped bushshrike Laniarius ruficepsEthiopia, Kenya, and Somalia
Black boubou Laniarius nigerrimusSomalia and northern Kenya.
Ethiopian boubou Laniarius aethiopicusEritrea, Ethiopia, northwest Somalia, and northern Kenya.
Tropical Boubou, Sakania, DRC (9436772164).jpg Tropical boubou Laniarius majorsub-Saharan Africa
East Coast boubou Laniarius sublacteussoutheast Somalia to northeast Tanzania, and Zanzibar island.
Southern Boubou (Laniarius ferrugineus).jpg Southern boubou Laniarius ferrugineussoutheastern Zimbabwe, eastern Botswana, Mozambique and southern and eastern South Africa
Swamp boubou Laniarius bicolorAngola, Botswana, Cameroon, Republic of the Congo, DRC, Gabon, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Turati's boubou Laniarius turatiiGuinea, Guinea-Bissau, and Sierra Leone
Flickr - Rainbirder - Yellow-crowned Gonolek (Laniarius barbarus).jpg Yellow-crowned gonolek Laniarius barbarusSenegal and Democratic Republic of Congo east to Ethiopia.
Papyrus Gonolek (Laniarius mufumbiri) - Kibale National Park, Uganda.jpg Papyrus gonolek Laniarius mufumbiriBurundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda
Black-headed Gonolek RWD.jpg Black-headed gonolek Laniarius erythrogasterBurundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Laniarius atrococcineus -Pretoria, South Africa-8 (2).jpg Crimson-breasted shrike Laniarius atrococcineussouthern Angola to the Free State province in South Africa.
LaniariusAtroflavusSmit.jpg Yellow-breasted boubou Laniarius atroflavuswestern Cameroon and adjacent southeastern Nigeria

Formerly, some authorities also considered the following species (or subspecies) as species within the genus Laniarius:

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References

  1. Vieillot, Louis Pierre (1816). Analyse d'une Nouvelle Ornithologie Élémentaire (in French). Paris: Deterville/self. p. 41.
  2. Mayr, Ernst; Greenway, James C. Jr, eds. (1960). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 9. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology. p. 326.
  3. Nguembock, Billy; Fjeldså, Jon; Couloux, Arnaud; Pasquet, Eric (2008). "Phylogeny of Laniarius: molecular data reveal L. liberatus synonymous with L. erlangeri and "plumage coloration" as unreliable morphological characters for defining species and species groups". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 48 (2): 396–407. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2008.04.014. PMID   18514549.
  4. Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (January 2023). "Batises, woodshrikes, bushshrikes, vangas". IOC World Bird List Version 13.1. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  5. Australia, Atlas of Living. "Pachycephala (Alisterornis) rufiventris rufiventris | Atlas of Living Australia". bie.ala.org.au. Retrieved 2017-02-06.