Laniarius

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Laniarus
Yellow-crowned gonolek
Laniarius barbarus
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Malaconotidae
Genus: Laniarius
Vieillot, 1816
Type species
Lanius barbarus
Linnaeus, 1766
Species

see text

Laniarius is a genus of brightly coloured, carnivorous passerine birds commonly known as boubous or gonoleks. Not to be confused with the similar-sounding genus Lanius, they were formerly classed with the true shrikes in the family Laniidae, but they and related genera are now considered sufficiently distinctive to be separated from that group as the bush-shrike family Malaconotidae.

This is an African group of species which are found in scrub or open woodland. They are similar in habits to shrikes, hunting insects and other small prey from a perch on a bush. Although similar in build to the shrikes, these tend to be either colourful species or largely black. Some species are also quite secretive.

Taxonomy and systematics[edit]

The genus Laniarius was introduced by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1816 to accommodate a single species, the yellow-crowned gonolek, which is therefore the type species.[1][2]

The closest relatives of the genus appear to be the genus Chlorophoneus. Previously, members of the genus Laniarius had been classified on the basis of plumage. However, a 2008 molecular study found that the species had developed different colours and patterns in plumage independently and similar-coloured species were often unrelated. The authors hypothesized that the ancestor of the genus may have been dark-coloured.[3]

There are 22 recognised species:[4]

Image Common Name Scientific name Distribution
Lowland sooty boubou Laniarius leucorhynchus Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Togo, and Uganda.
Mountain sooty boubou Laniarius poensis Nigeria, Bioko; Rwanda, Burundi and adjacent areas of Uganda and Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Albertine sooty boubou Laniarius holomelas Uganda and Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Willard’s sooty boubou Laniarius willardi Burundi and Uganda
Fuelleborn's boubou Laniarius fuelleborni Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia
Slate-colored boubou Laniarius funebris Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Lühder's bushshrike Laniarius luehderi Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Braun's bushshrike Laniarius brauni Angola
Gabela bushshrike Laniarius amboimensis Angola.
Red-naped bushshrike Laniarius ruficeps Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia
Black boubou Laniarius nigerrimus Somalia and northern Kenya.
Ethiopian boubou Laniarius aethiopicus Eritrea, Ethiopia, northwest Somalia, and northern Kenya.
Tropical boubou Laniarius major sub-Saharan Africa
East Coast boubou Laniarius sublacteus southeast Somalia to northeast Tanzania, and Zanzibar island.
Southern boubou Laniarius ferrugineus southeastern Zimbabwe, eastern Botswana, Mozambique and southern and eastern South Africa
Swamp boubou Laniarius bicolor Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, Republic of the Congo, DRC, Gabon, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Turati's boubou Laniarius turatii Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and Sierra Leone
Yellow-crowned gonolek Laniarius barbarus Senegal and Democratic Republic of Congo east to Ethiopia.
Papyrus gonolek Laniarius mufumbiri Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda
Black-headed gonolek Laniarius erythrogaster Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Crimson-breasted shrike Laniarius atrococcineus southern Angola to the Free State province in South Africa.
Yellow-breasted boubou Laniarius atroflavus western Cameroon and adjacent southeastern Nigeria

Formerly, some authorities also considered the following species (or subspecies) as species within the genus Laniarius:

References[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Laniarius.
  1. ^ Vieillot, Louis Pierre (1816). Analyse d'une Nouvelle Ornithologie Élémentaire (in French). Paris: Deterville/self. p. 41.
  2. ^ Mayr, Ernst; Greenway, James C. Jr, eds. (1960). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 9. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology. p. 326.
  3. ^ Nguembock, Billy; Fjeldså, Jon; Couloux, Arnaud; Pasquet, Eric (2008). "Phylogeny of Laniarius: molecular data reveal L. liberatus synonymous with L. erlangeri and "plumage coloration" as unreliable morphological characters for defining species and species groups". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 48 (2): 396–407. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2008.04.014. PMID 18514549.
  4. ^ Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (January 2023). "Batises, woodshrikes, bushshrikes, vangas". IOC World Bird List Version 13.1. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  5. ^ Australia, Atlas of Living. "Pachycephala (Alisterornis) rufiventris rufiventris | Atlas of Living Australia". bie.ala.org.au. Retrieved 2017-02-06.
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