Thick-billed weaver
| Thick-billed weaver | |
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| File:Amblyospiza albifrons -Pretoria, South Africa -male-8.jpg | |
| Male in Pretoria, South Africa | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | |
| Phylum: | |
| Class: | |
| Order: | |
| Family: | |
| Genus: |
Amblyospiza
Sundevall, 1850
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| Species: |
A. albifrons
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| Binomial name | |
| Amblyospiza albifrons (Vigors, 1831)
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The thick-billed weaver or grosbeak weaver (Amblyospiza albifrons) is a distinctive and bold species of weaver bird that is native to the Afrotropics. It is monotypic within the genus Amblyospiza.[2] They have particularly strong mandibles, which are employed to extricate the seeds in nutlets and drupes, and their songs are comparatively unmusical and harsh. Their colonial nests are readily distinguishable from those of other weavers, due to their form and placement, and the fine strands used in their construction.
Contents
Range
It has a patchy distribution in West, East and southern Africa,[3] where it is present in marshes, uplands, suburban areas and artificial wetlands.
It is found in Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, CAR, Republic of the Congo, DRC, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.[1]
Races
There are five accepted races:[4]
- A. a. capitalba (Bonaparte, 1850) – discontinuously from se Guinea to s CAR and nw Angola
- A. a. melanota (Heuglin, 1863) – South Sudan and s Ethiopia, through the rift valley and adjacent lowlands to nw Tanzania
- A. a. montana van Someren, 1921 – Kenyan and Tanzanian interior, se DRC to Malawi and Okavango Basin
- A. a. unicolor (G.A.Fischer & Reichenow, 1878) – East coast littoral from s Somalia to Zanzibar and Pemba islands.
- A. a. albifrons (Vigors, 1831) – e Zimbabwe and c Mozambique, southwards to e South Africa
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Amblyospiza albifrons, nes, a, Manie van der Schijff BT.jpg
Nest built in an exotic bamboo species
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Amblyospiza albifrons, w, vreet netel-dopvrugte, a, Skeerpoort.jpg
Female feeding on nettle nutlets in an upland region
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Thick-billed Weaver (Amblyospiza albifrons) juvenile (12929741175).jpg
Immature bird showing yellow mandibles
References
External links
- Thick-billed weaver - Species text in The Atlas of Southern African Birds.
- Thick-billed weaver on Weaver Watch
Media related to Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. at Wikimedia Commons
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