Tejedor Africano

Identificación

The village weaver is a stocky, 15–17 cm bird with a strong conical bill and dark reddish eyes. In the northern part of its range, the breeding male has a black head edged by chestnut (typically most distinct on the nape and chest). Towards the southern part of its range, the amount of black and chestnut diminish, and the breeding males of the southernmost subspecies only have a black face and throat, while the nape and crown are yellow. In all subspecies, the breeding male has a black bill, black and yellow upperparts and wings, and yellow underparts.<p>The nonbreeding male has a yellow head with an olive crown, grey upperparts and whitish underparts. The wings remain yellow and black. The adult female has streaked olive upperparts, yellow and black wings, and pale yellow underparts. Young birds are like the female, but browner on the back.

Taxonomía

Philipp Ludwig Statius Müller provided the first scientific name, Oriolus cucullatus, in his 1776 translation in German of the famous Systema Naturae, written by Carl Linnaeus. The classification provided by Statius Muller was based on a description by Buffon, who in turn made use of work by Mathurin Jacques Brisson. Brisson was the first to publish a black-and-white etching of the bird in 1760. The first colored figure was made by François-Nicolas Martinet in a book titled Planches enluminées d'histoire naturelle by Edme-Louis Daubenton, that was published in 1783. The specimen described by Brisson was collected in Senegal by Michel Adanson between 1748 and 1754, and who sent it to René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur in France. Latham eventually gave the scientific name Oriolus textor in 1790. Based on Oriolus textor, Johann Friedrich Gmelin erected in 1825 a new genus he named Textor. This name has priority over the use of the genus name in the combination Textor alecto that Temminck described in 1828, and which is a synonym for the first name of the white-billed buffalo-weaver, Coccothraustes albirostris, as named by Vieillot in 1817, and now assigned to the genus Bubalornis. The species epithet cucullatus is Latin and means "hooded".<p>In 1789, Johann Friedrich Gmelin distinguished Loxia abyssinica, which was later recognised as a subspecies of the village weaver and for which the new combination P. c. abyssinicus was created. Louis Pierre Vieillot described a slightly different bird that he called subspecies collaris in 1819. Nicholas Aylward Vigors in 1831 distinguished subspecies spilonotus.<p>The first English name, "weever oriole" was given by John Latham, an early British ornithologist, whose work was often cited by Linnaeus. "Village weaver" has been designated the official name by the International Ornithological Committee. Other English names are "black-headed weaver", "Layard's black-headed weaver", "black-hooded weaver", "mottled-backed weaver", "mottled weaver", "spotted-backed weaver", "spot-backed weaver", and "V-marked weaver". <p>Eight subspecies are recognized:

Nombre científico

Ploceus cucullatus

Autoridad

(Müller, PLS, 1776)

Orden

Passeriformes

Familia

Plóceos

Género

Ploceus

Distribución y hábitat

The village weaver is among the more common weaver species, and is widespread in sub-Saharan Africa, but is absent from the arid regions in the southwest and northeast. It has been introduced to islands in the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean, where it has adapted well to the climates similar to its original range.

Migración

Especie residente

Comportamiento

Patrón migratorio: Especie residente.

Conservación

Tendencia poblacional: estable.

Tendencia poblacional

estable