Pied Starling

About the Pied Starling

The pied starling or African pied starling (Lamprotornis bicolor) is a bird endemic to South Africa, Lesotho and Eswatini. It is common in most of its range, but largely absent from the arid northwest and the eastern lowlands of South Africa. It is found in open habitats such as grassland, karoo scrub, thornbush and agricultural land, and often associates with farm animals.

The pied starling was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the thrushes in the genus Turdus and coined the binomial name Turdus bicolor. Gmelin based his description on "Le merle brun du cap de Bonne Espérance" that had been described in 1775 by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in his book Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. The pied starling is now placed in the genus Lamprotornis that was introduced in 1820 by the Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck. The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.

The adult of this 27–28 cm (11 in) long starling has mainly dully glossed black plumage except for a white lower belly and... Wikipedia →