The rufous-bellied tit (''Melaniparus rufiventris'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

in the tit family. It is found in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

from the

Republic of the Congo The Republic of the Congo, also known as Congo-Brazzaville, the Congo Republic or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo), is a country located on the western coast of Central ...

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...

and northern

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

east to

Tanzania Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...

and northern

Mozambique Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique, is a country located in Southeast Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west, and Eswatini and South Afr ...

Taxonomy

The rufous-bellied tit 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 ...

in 1877 by the Portuguese zoologist

José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage (2 May 1823 – 3 November 1907) was a Portuguese zoologist, politician, and professor. He served as a professor of zoology and director of the National Museum of Natural History and Science, Lisbon, National Museu ...

based on a specimen collected near the town of

Caconda Caconda is a town and a municipality in the province of Huíla, Angola. The municipality had a population of 167,820 in 2014. The ''Concelho'' (municipality) was officially founded on 1857. It has a population of 167,820 (2014 census). In the 1 ...

in central Angola. He placed it with the tits in the

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

Parus ''Parus'' is a genus of Old World birds in the tit family Paridae. It was formerly a large genus containing most of the 50 odd species in the family Paridae. The genus was split into several resurrected genera following the publication of a deta ...

'' and 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 ...

''Parus rufiventris''. The specific epithet is

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 ...

meaning "red-bellied", from

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 ...

''rufus'' meaning "ruddy" or "rufous" and ''venter'', ''ventris'' meaning "belly". The rufous-bellied tit is now one of 14 tits placed in the

Melaniparus ''Melaniparus'' is a genus of birds in the tit (bird), tit family. The species were formerly placed in the speciose genus ''Parus'' but were moved to ''Melaniparus'' based on a molecular phylogenetic analysis published in 2013 that showed that the ...

'' that was introduced in 1850 by the French naturalist

Charles Lucien Bonaparte Charles Lucien Jules Laurent Bonaparte, 2nd Prince of Canino and Musignano (24 May 1803 – 29 July 1857) was a French naturalist and ornithology, ornithologist, and a nephew of Napoleon. Lucien and his wife had twelve children, including Cardinal ...

. Five

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: * ''M. r. rufiventris'' ( Barboza du Bocage, 1877) – south Congo and south DR Congo to central Angola and central Zambia * ''M. r. masukuensis'' ( Shelley, 1900) – southeast DR Congo, east Zambia and Malawi * ''M. r. diligens'' ( Clancey, 1979) – south Angola, north Namibia, southwest Zambia and northwest Botswana * ''M. r. pallidiventris'' (

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 ...

, 1885) – Tanzania, south Malawi and north Mozambique * ''M. r. stenotopicus'' (Clancey, 1989) – east Zimbabwe and central west Mozambique The subspecies ''M. r. pallidiventris'' and ''M. r. stenotopicus'' have sometimes been considered as a separate species, the cinnamon-breasted tit. It was thought that iris color was a reliable feature to differentiate the two species but a study published in 2015 found that in western Tanzania birds with dark eyes and pale eyes occurred in the same flocks. This suggests that it might be better to consider the cinnamon-breasted tit as a subspecies of the rufous-bellied tit.

Description

This long bird has a black head, breast, wings and tail, grey upperparts, white fringes to the wing feathers, and rufous underparts. The adult has a yellow eye, brown in the duller juvenile. Its

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 ...

is subtropical or tropical dry

miombo Miombo woodland is a tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome (in the World Wide Fund for Nature scheme) located in central and southern tropical Africa. It includes three woodland savanna ecoregions (listed below) chara ...

forest A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense ecological community, community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, ...

References

*Harrap and Quinn, ''Tits, Nuthatches and Treecreepers'' Christopher Helm, 1996

External links

* Rufous-bellied Tit
Species text in The Atlas of Southern African Birds

rufous-bellied tit The rufous-bellied tit (''Melaniparus rufiventris'') is a species of bird in the tit family. It is found in Africa from the Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo and northern Namibia east to Tanzania and northern Mozambique. ...

Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Paridae-stub