Yellow-rumped Widowbird

About the Yellow-rumped Widowbird

The yellow bishop (Euplectes capensis), also known as Cape bishop, Cape widow or yellow-rumped widow, is a resident breeding Afromontane bird species. This common weaver occurs in less arid vegetated areas, such as fynbos, moist grassland and bracken-covered valleys at altitudes from sea level to the Ethiopian Highlands.

In 1760, the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the yellow bishop in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected from the Cape of Good Hope. He used the French name Le pinçon du Cap de Bonne Espérance and the Latin Fringilla Capitis Bonae Spei. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson. One of these was the yellow bishop. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Loxia capensis and cited Brisson's work. The specific name capensis denotes the Cape of Good Hope. This species is now placed in the genus Euplectes... Wikipedia →