Yellow-billed Shrike

About the Yellow-billed Shrike

The yellow-billed shrike (Corvinella corvina) is a large passerine bird in the shrike family. It is sometimes known as the long-tailed shrike, but this invites confusion with the long-tailed shrike, Lanius schach, of tropical southern Asia. It is the only species placed in the genus Corvinella. The yellow-billed shrike is a common resident breeding bird in tropical Africa from Senegal eastwards to Uganda and locally in westernmost Kenya. It frequents forest and other habitats with trees.

The yellow-billed shrike was formally described in 1809 as Lanius corvinus by the English naturalist George Shaw. The specific epithet is from Latin meaning "raven-like". Shaw based his account on "La Grande-pie-grieche" that had been described and illustrated in 1799 by the French naturalist François Levaillant. Levaillant had acquired a preserved specimen from a dealer and did not know its origin. In 1831 the French naturalist René Lesson introduced the genus Corvinella to accommodate the yellow-billed shrike and also designated the type location as Senegal. Based on the results of molecular genetic studies, this species has sometimes been placed in the genus Lanius, but the phylogenetic... Wikipedia →