Black-winged Bishop

About the Black-winged Bishop

The black-winged red bishop (Euplectes hordeaceus), formerly known in southern Africa as the fire-crowned bishop, is a resident breeding bird species in tropical Africa from Senegal to Sudan and south to Angola, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

The black-winged red bishop was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Loxia hordeacea. Linnaeus mistakenly specified the type location as India but this has been corrected to Senegal. The specific epithet hordeaceus is Latin meaning "of barley" from hordeum meaning "barley". The black-winged red bishop is now one of 18 species in the genus Euplectes that was introduced in 1829 by the English naturalist William Swainson.

Two subspecies are recognised: E. h. hordeaceus (Linnaeus, 1758) – Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia to west Sudan, DR Congo, Tanzania and south to Angola, Zimbabwe and Mozambique E. h. craspedopterus Bonaparte, 1850 – south Sudan, southwest Ethiopia, Uganda and west Kenya

The black-winged red bishop is a stocky 13–15 cm (5.1–5.9 in) bird. The breeding male is scarlet apart from his black face, belly... Wikipedia →