Karoo Chat

About the Karoo Chat

The Karoo chat (Emarginata schlegelii) is a small passerine bird of the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae. It is a common resident breeder in southwesternmost Angola, western Namibia and western South Africa. Its habitat is Karoo and desert scrub in the south, extending to the escarpment zone in the north.

The first formal description of the Karoo chat was by the Swedish naturalist Johan August Wahlberg in 1855 under the binomial name Erithacus schlegelii. The species was subsequently placed in the genus Cercomela introduced by Charles Lucien Bonaparte in 1856. It was moved to its current genus, Emarginata, after molecular phylogenetic studies published in 2010 and 2012 found that Cercomela was polyphyletic. The specific name commemorates the German ornithologist, Hermann Schlegel.

There are four subspecies: E. s. benguellensis (Sclater, WL, 1928) – southwestern Angola and northwestern Namibia E. s. schlegelii (Wahlberg, 1855) – coastal Namibia E. s. namaquensis (Sclater, WL, 1928) – southern Namibia and northwestern South Africa

E. s. pollux (Hartlaub, 1866) – western and central South Africa The Karoo chat is 16–18 cm long and weighs around... Wikipedia →