Batis Senegalés

Identificación

The Senegal batis is a restless flycatcher-like small bird with the distinctive black, white and grey colours and plumage patterns which are typical of the batises. The adult male has a dark slate grey forehead and crown with a long, broad white supercilium which almost reaches the white nape patch. The face mask is glossy bluish-black. The mantle and upper back are slate grey tinged with brown, the lower back and rump are mottled grey, white and black. The feathers on the rump are long and this gives the rump a fluffy appearance, contrasting with the glossy blue-back uppertail coverts. The wings are brownish black with a white stripe along their length. The underwing coverts are black and the tail is black with white tipped and edged outer tail feathers. The underparts are white, except for the underwing coverts and thighs and the broad glossy blue-black breast band. Adult females are overall paler than males with dusky grey brown forehead and crown, a buff supercilium and nape patch and a black face mask, browner wings and a russet breast band, as well as rufous ting to the chin and upper throat. Juveniles are like duller females. The Senegal batis measures 10 cm (3.9 in) in length and weighs 8–11.4 g (0.28–0.40 oz).<p>The main call of the Senegal batis is a series of medium pitched double and triple note whistles which do not vary in pitch and are frequently introduced with buzzy notes.

Taxonomía

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. The species is monotypic.

Nombre científico

Batis senegalensis

Autoridad

(Linnaeus, 1766)

Orden

Passeriformes

Familia

Platisteíridae

Género

Batis

Distribución y hábitat

The Senegal batis is found from southern Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia east to Nigeria and north and central Cameroon, east to the Benoué Plain and Mandara Mountains.<p>The Senegal batis inhabits low dry thorny scrub, sparsely treed grasslands and woody savannahs, including open acacia and baobab woodlands.

Migración

Especie residente

Comportamiento

Patrón migratorio: Especie residente.

Conservación

Tendencia poblacional: en declive.

Tendencia poblacional

en declive