Yellow-billed Oxpecker

About the Yellow-billed Oxpecker

The yellow-billed oxpecker (Buphagus africanus) is a passerine bird in the family Buphagidae. It was previously placed in the starling and myna family, Sturnidae. It is native to the savannah of Sub-Saharan Africa from Senegal east to Sudan. It is least common in the extreme east of its range where it overlaps with the red-billed oxpecker, despite always dominating that species when feeding.

In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the yellow-billed oxpecker in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in Senegal. He used the French name Le pique-boeuf and the Latin Buphagus. 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 yellow-billed oxpecker. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Buphaga africana and cited Brisson's work. This species is placed in the genus Buphagus that was introduced by Brisson... Wikipedia →