Cut-throat
Amadina fasciata
A small, gray-brown, heavily scaled and barred waxbill. The male has a characteristic red crescent throat band that the female and juvenile lack. Pairs and flocks are resident in arid thorn scrub, dry broadleaf woodland, and grassy scrub. The species joins flocks with other seedeaters in the non-breeding season. The female Red-headed Finch looks similar to the smaller female Cut-throat, but differs in its plain (not barred) head and its white-tipped outer tail.
Identification
The cut-throat finch has plumage that is pale, sandy brown with flecks of black all over. It has a black-brown tail, a thick white chin and cheeks, and a chestnut brown patch on the belly. The legs are a pink fleshy colour. The adult male has a bright red band across its throat (thus the name "cut throat"), while the male juveniles have a slightly duller red band.<p>It has an estimated global extent of occurrence of 3,300,000 km2. It is found throughout much of Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in the Sahel, eastern and southern parts of the continent.
Taxonomy
The cut-throat finch 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 crossbills in the genus Loxia and coined the binomial name Loxia fasciata. The specific epithet is from Late Latin faciatus meaning "banded". Gmelin based his account on the "fasciated grossbeak" that had been described and illustrated in 1776 by the English naturalist Peter Brown. Neither Brown nor Gmelin specified a locality but in 1805 the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot designated Senegal. The cut-throat finch is now placed with the red-headed finch in the genus Amadina that was introduced in 1827 by the English naturalist William Swainson.<p>Four subspecies are recognised:
- Scientific name
- Amadina fasciata
- Authority
- (Gmelin, JF, 1789)
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Estrildidae
- Genus
- Amadina
Range and habitat
- Migration
- Resident species
Conservation
- Population trend
- stable
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
Other Birds
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