The African red-rumped swallow (''Cecropis melanocrissus'') is small

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped') which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines generally have an anisodactyl arrangement of their ...

bird in the swallow family

Hirundinidae The swallows, martins, and saw-wings, or Hirundinidae are a family of passerine songbirds found around the world on all continents, including occasionally in Antarctica. Highly adapted to aerial feeding, they have a distinctive appearance. The t ...

. It is found in northern areas of Africa south of the Sahara.

Taxonomy

The African red-rumped swallow was

formally described A species description is a formal scientific description of a newly encountered species, typically articulated through a scientific publication. Its purpose is to provide a clear description of a new species of organism and explain how it differ ...

and illustrated in 1845 by the German naturalist

Eduard Rüppell Wilhelm Peter Eduard Simon Rüppell, also spelled Rueppell (20 November 1794 – 10 December 1884) was a German Natural history, naturalist and List of explorers, explorer, best known for his collections and descriptions of plants and animals from ...

based on a specimen collected in the

Tembien Tembien (Tigrinya language, Tigrigna: ተምቤን) is a historic region in Tigray Region and former provinces of Ethiopia. It is a mountainous area of that country. During the reforms in 1994–95, the old provinces were replaced with regions of ...

region of northern Ethiopia. He coined the

binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, altho ...

''Cecropis melanocrissus'' where the specific epithet combines the

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

''melas'', ''melanos'' meaning "black" with

Modern Latin Neo-LatinSidwell, Keith ''Classical Latin-Medieval Latin-Neo Latin'' in ; others, throughout. (also known as New Latin and Modern Latin) is the style of written Latin used in original literary, scholarly, and scientific works, first in Italy d ...

''crissum'' meaning "vent". Four

subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

are recognised: * ''C. m. domicella'' ( Heuglin, 1869) – west Africa from Senegambia to east Sudan * ''C. m. melanocrissus'' Rüppell, 1845 – Ethiopia and Eritrea * ''C. m. kumboensis'' ( Bannerman, 1923) – Sierra Leone and west Cameroon * ''C. m. emini'' (

Reichenow Anton Reichenow (1 August 1847 in Charlottenburg – 6 July 1941 in Hamburg) was a German ornithologist and herpetologist. Reichenow was the son-in-law of Jean Cabanis, and worked at the Natural History Museum of Berlin from 1874 to 1921. He was ...

, 1892) – southeast Sudan, Uganda and Kenya to Malawi and north Zambia The subspecies ''domicella'' was formerly treated as a separate species, the West African swallow. The subspecies ''melanocrissus'', ''kumboensis'' and ''emini'' were formerly placed in the red-rumped swallow complex. The taxa were re-arranged based mainly on differences in morphology. As part of the rearrangement the red-rumped swallow complex was split into the European red-rumped swallow and the eastern red-rumped swallow.

References

African red-rumped swallow Birds of Sub-Saharan Africa African red-rumped swallow Taxa named by Eduard Rüppell {{Hirundinidae-stub