Senegal Batis

About the Senegal Batis

The Senegal batis (Batis senegalensis) is a species of small passerine bird in the wattle-eyes family, Platysteiridae. It occurs in western Africa where it is found in dry savanna and subtropical or tropical dry shrubland. It was originally given the binomial name Muscicapa senegalensis by Carl Linnaeus in 1766.

In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the Senegal batis in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in Senegal. He used the French name Le gobe-mouche à poitrine rousse du Sénégal and the Latin Muscicapa Senegalensis pectore rufo. 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 Senegal batis. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Muscicapa senegalensis and cited Brisson's work. The species is now placed in the genus Batis that was introduced by the German zoologist Friedrich Boie in 1833... Wikipedia →