Olive Bee-eater

Identificazione

The olive bee-eater grows to a length of 23 to 26 cm (9.1 to 10.2 in) with its tail streamers adding up to 7 cm (2.8 in). The sexes are similar, and adults have bronzy-green plumage with an olive cap and white forehead, eyebrows, chin and cheeks. The rump and tail are blue, apart from the streamers, which are black.

Tassonomia

In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the olive bee-eater in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected on the island of Madagascar. He used the French name Le guespier de Madagascar and the Latin Apiaster Madagascariensis. 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 olive bee-eater. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the current binomial name Merops superciliosus and cited Brisson's work. The specific name superciliosus is Latin for "supercilious", "haughty" or "eye-browed".<p>Two subspecies are recognised:

Nome scientifico

Merops superciliosus

Autorità

Linnaeus, 1766

Ordine

Coraciformi

Famiglia

Meropidae

Genere

Merops

Areale e habitat

The olive bee-eater is found in the grassland and coastal mountain forests of East Africa and Madagascar, and an isolated population can be found in coastal Angola. There are two subspecies; M. s. superciliosus occurs in eastern Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya, and southwards through East Africa to southern Mozambique and the Zambezi Valley, as well as the Comoro Islands and Madagascar; M. s. alternans occurs in western Angola and northwestern Namibia.

Migrazione

Migratori completi

Comportamento

Comportamento migratorio: Migratori completi.

Conservazione

Tendenza della popolazione: stabile.

Tendenza della popolazione

stabile