The African swamphen (''Porphyrio madagascariensis'') is a species of swamphen occurring in

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

Sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lie south of the Sahara. These include Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the list of sovereign states and ...

and

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

. It used to be considered a subspecies of the

purple swamphen The purple swamphen has been split into the following species: * Western swamphen, ''Porphyrio porphyrio'', southwest Europe and northwest Africa * African swamphen, ''Porphyrio madagascariensis'', sub-Saharan continental Africa and Madagascar * ...

, which it resembles, but with bronze green or green-blue back and scapulars. The African Swamphen is a mainly sedentary species that can be found in sub-Saharan Africa, including southern Africa, where it is sometimes locally common. It is found in northern and eastern Botswana, part of Namibia, Zimbabwe, South Africa and the coast of Mozambique. In South Africa it is absent from the Northern Cape and the interior of the Eastern Cape. It has occurred as a vagrant in Israel with a record from Eilat in October 2015. The African swamphen has a preference for freshwater or brackish ponds, slow flowing rivers, especially those flanked by reeds (''Phragmites'') and sedges, marshes, swamps, it also occurs on seasonally flooded wetlands. The population is believed to be decreasing due to local disturbance and loss of habitat although it is not considered to be threatened.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:swamphen, African African swamphen African swamphen African swamphen