Cabanis's greenbul (''Phyllastrephus cabanisi''), also known as Cabanis's bulbul, is a species of

songbird A songbird is a bird belonging to the suborder Passeri of the perching birds (Passeriformes). Another name that is sometimes seen as the scientific or vernacular name is Oscines, from Latin ''oscen'', "songbird". The Passeriformes contains 5,00 ...

in the

bulbul The bulbuls are members of a family, Pycnonotidae, of medium-sized passerine songbirds, which also includes greenbuls, brownbuls, leafloves, and bristlebills. The family is distributed across most of Africa and into the Middle East, tropic ...

family, Pycnonotidae. It is found in east-central and south-central Africa. Its natural

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

s are

subtropical or tropical dry forest The tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forest is a habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature and is located at tropical and subtropical latitudes. Though these forests occur in climates that are warm year-round, and may receive ...

subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests (TSMF), also known as tropical moist forest, is a subtropical and tropical forest habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Description TSMF is generally found in large ...

, subtropical or tropical moist

montane forest Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures lapse rate, fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is ...

, and

subtropical or tropical moist shrubland The subtropical zones or subtropics are geographical zone, geographical and Köppen climate classification, climate zones immediately to the Northern Hemisphere, north and Southern Hemisphere, south of the tropics. Geographically part of the Ge ...

Taxonomy

Cabanis's greenbul was formally described in 1880 by the German ornithologist

Jean Cabanis Jean Louis Cabanis (8 March 1816 – 20 February 1906) was a German ornithologist. He worked at the bird collections of the Natural History Museum in Berlin becoming its first curator of birds in 1850. He founded the ''Journal für Ornithologie ...

under 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 ...

''Trichophorus flaveolus'' based on a specimen that had been collected in Angola. Unfortunately, the scientific name was pre-occupied by ''Trichophorus flaveolus'' that had been introduced by John Gould in 1836 for the

white-throated bulbul The white-throated bulbul (''Alophoixus flaveolus'') is a species of songbird in the bulbul family, Pycnonotidae. It is found in south-eastern Asia from the eastern Himalayas to Myanmar and western Thailand. Its natural habitat is subtropical or ...

, now ''Alophoixus flaveolus''. In 1882 the English ornithologist

Richard Bowdler Sharpe Richard Bowdler Sharpe (22 November 1847 – 25 December 1909) was an English people, English zoologist and ornithology, ornithologist who worked as curator of the bird collection at the British Museum of natural history. In the course of his car ...

proposed the

replacement name In biological nomenclature, a ''nomen novum'' (Latin for "new name"), replacement name (or new replacement name, new substitute name, substitute name) is a replacement scientific name that is created when technical, nomenclatural reasons have mad ...

, ''Criniger cabanisi'', with the specific epithet chosen to honour Cabanis who had first described the species. Cabanis's greenbul is now one of 20 greenbuls placed in the genus ''

Phyllastrephus ''Phyllastrephus'' is a songbird genus in the bulbul family (biology), family Pycnonotidae. Most of the species in the genus are Greenbul, typical greenbuls, though two are brownbuls, and one is a leaflove. Taxonomy and systematics The genus '' ...

'' that was introduced in 1832 by

William Swainson William Swainson Fellow of the Linnean Society, FLS, Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (8 October 1789 – 6 December 1855), was an English ornithologist, Malacology, malacologist, Conchology, conchologist, entomologist and artist. Life Swains ...

. The genus name combines the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

φυλλον/''phullon '' meaning "leaf" with στρεφω/''strephō'' meaning "to toss" or "to turn". Three

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: * ''P. c. cabanisi'' ( Sharpe, 1882) – central Angola to southeast DR Congo, west Tanzania and north Zambia * ''P. c. sucosus'' Reichenow, 1904 – south Sudan and west Kenya to east DR Congo and northwest Tanzania * ''P. c. placidus'' ( Shelley, 1899) – east Kenya through Tanzania to northeast Zambia, Malawi and northwest Mozambique The subspecies ''P. c. placidus'' has sometimes been considered as a separate species, the placid greenbul.

References

Cabanis's greenbul Birds of East Africa Birds of Central Africa Cabanis's greenbul Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Pycnonotidae-stub