Cape Bunting

About the Cape Bunting

The Cape bunting (Emberiza capensis) is a passerine bird in the bunting family Emberizidae. In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the Cape bunting in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected at the Cape of Good Hope. He used the French name L'ortolan du Cap de Bonne Espérance and the Latin Hortulanus 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 Cape bunting. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Emberiza capensis and cited Brisson's work. Linnaeus had introduced the genus Emberiza in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. The specific name capensis is used to denote the Cape of Good Hope.

Eleven subspecies are recognised: E. c. nebularum (Rudebeck, 1958) – southwest Angola E. c. bradfieldi (Roberts, 1928) – north, central Namibia E. c. capensis Linnaeus, 1766 – south... Wikipedia →