Speckled Mousebird

About the Speckled Mousebird

The speckled mousebird (Colius striatus) is the largest species of mousebird, as well as one of the most common. It is found throughout most of Central, Eastern and Southern Africa. The speckled mousebird 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 mousebirds in the genus Colius and coined the binomial name Colius striatus. Gmelin based his description on the "Coliou rayé" that had been described in 1778 by the French polymath Comte de Buffon from a specimen that had been collected near the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.

Seventeen subspecies are recognised: C. s. nigricollis Vieillot, 1817 – Ghana and Nigeria to southwest Central African Republic and south to west Angola and southwest DR Congo C. s. leucophthalmus Chapin, 1921 – north DR Congo, southeast Central African Republic and southwest Sudan

C. s. leucotis Rüppell, 1839 – east Sudan, Eritrea and west, central Ethiopia C. s. hilgerti Zedlitz, 1910 – southwest Djibouti, northeast Ethiopia and northwest Somalia C. s. jebelensis Mearns, 1915 – south Sudan, northeast DR Congo and north... Wikipedia →