The fan-tailed widowbird (''Euplectes axillaris''), also known as the red-shouldered widowbird, 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 family

Ploceidae Ploceidae is a family of small passerine birds, many of which are called weavers, weaverbirds, weaver finches, or bishops. These names come from the nests of intricately woven vegetation created by birds in this family. In most recent classificat ...

, which is native to grassy and swampy areas of the tropical and subtropical

Afrotropics The Afrotropical realm is one of the Earth's eight biogeographic realms. It includes Sub-Saharan Africa, the southern Arabian Peninsula, the island of Madagascar, and the islands of the western Indian Ocean. It was formerly known as the Ethiopi ...

Range

It is found in Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo, DRC,

Eswatini Eswatini, formally the Kingdom of Eswatini, also known by its former official names Swaziland and the Kingdom of Swaziland, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. It is bordered by South Africa on all sides except the northeast, where i ...

, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Euplectes axillaris1 crop

Races

There are five accepted races: * ''E. a.'' subsp. ''bocagei'' (Sharpe, 1871) – West Africa from

Mali Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is the List of African countries by area, eighth-largest country in Africa, with an area of over . The country is bordered to the north by Algeria, to the east b ...

to CAR and DRC, and southwards to the

Caprivi Strip The Caprivi Strip, also known simply as Caprivi, is a geographic salient protruding from the northeastern corner of Namibia. It is bordered by Botswana to the south and Angola and Zambia to the north. Namibia, Botswana and Zambia meet at a sing ...

, Okavango and upper

Zambezi The Zambezi (also spelled Zambeze and Zambesi) is the fourth-longest river in Africa, the longest east-flowing river in Africa and the largest flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa. Its drainage basin covers , slightly less than half of t ...

regions. * ''E. a.'' subsp. ''phoeniceus'' (Heuglin, 1862) – East Africa (Sudan to upland Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and Malawi) * ''E. a.'' subsp. ''traversii'' (Salvadori, 1888) –

Ethiopian Highlands The Ethiopian Highlands (also called the Abyssinian Highlands) is a rugged mass of mountains in Ethiopia in Northeast Africa. It forms the largest continuous area of its elevation in the continent, with little of its surface falling below , whil ...

* ''E. a.'' subsp. ''zanzibaricus'' (Shelley, 1881) – African east coast (Somalia to Tanzania) * ''E. a.'' subsp. ''axillaris'' (A.Smith, 1838) – southeastern Africa (lowland Malawi to eastern South Africa)

References

External links

* (Fan-tailed widowbird = ) Red-shouldered widowbird
Species text in The Atlas of Southern African Birds

Species text
on Weaver Watch fan-tailed widowbird Birds of Sub-Saharan Africa fan-tailed widowbird Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Ploceidae-stub