The nicators are a genus, ''Nicator'', and family, Nicatoridae, 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 ...

s endemic to Africa. The genus and family contain three species.

Taxonomy

The systematic affinities of the genus have been a long-standing mystery. The group was originally assigned to the

shrike Shrikes () are passerine birds of the family Laniidae. The family is composed of 34 species in two genera. The family name, and that of the larger genus, '' Lanius'', is derived from the Latin word for "butcher", and some shrikes are also known ...

s (Laniidae). In the 1920s

James Chapin James Paul Chapin (July 9, 1889 – April 5, 1964) was an American ornithologist and curator of the American Museum of Natural History. Biography Chapin is one of the highest-regarded ornithologists of the twentieth century. He was joint leader ...

noted the similarities between the nicators and both 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 ...

s (Pycnonotidae) and the bushshrikes (Malaconotidae). It wasn't until 1943 that

Jean Théodore Delacour Jean Théodore Delacour (26 September 1890 – 5 November 1985) was a French ornithologist and aviculturist. He later became American. He was renowned for not only discovering but also rearing some of the rarest birds in the world. He establishe ...

placed the genus with the bulbuls.

Storrs Olson Storrs Lovejoy Olson (April 3, 1944 – January 20, 2021) was an American biologist and ornithologist who spent his career at the Smithsonian Institution, retiring in 2008. One of the world's foremost avian paleontologists, he was best known ...

argued that the genus was more closely related to the bushshrikes, as the nicators lacked the ossification of the nostril found in all other bulbuls. A number of features, including the position of the facial bristles (which are preorbital rather than rictal), their nests and the calls, make the genus unique, and DNA studies have recently suggested that the genus is best treated as a monogeneric

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

. Some authorities, like the Clements Checklist, treat the nicators as a new family, Nicatoridae. The name of the genus is derived from ''Nikátōr'' (Νικάτωρ),

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

for 'conqueror'. Within the genus, the western and eastern nicators are considered to form a superspecies and are sometimes treated as the same species.

Species

Description

The nicators are shrike-like birds, in length. The eastern and western nicators are similar in size and larger than the yellow-throated nicator. The males are considerably heavier than the females, for example in the western nicator the males range from , whereas the females only weigh . The yellow-throated nicator is much lighter, ranging from only . The nicators have heavy hooked bills. The

plumage Plumage () is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, there can b ...

of the genus is overall olive on the backs, tail and wings, with yellow spotting on the wings, and lighter grey or whitish undersides.

Distribution and habitat

The nicators are

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

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 ...

. The western nicator has a mostly continuous distribution from

Senegal Senegal, officially the Republic of Senegal, is the westernmost country in West Africa, situated on the Atlantic Ocean coastline. It borders Mauritania to Mauritania–Senegal border, the north, Mali to Mali–Senegal border, the east, Guinea t ...

to eastern

Uganda Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the ...

and northern

Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...

. The eastern nicator has a discontinuous distribution in East Africa from

Somalia Somalia, officially the Federal Republic of Somalia, is the easternmost country in continental Africa. The country is located in the Horn of Africa and is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, th ...

south to eastern South Africa. The yellow-throated nicator is distributed in central Africa from Cameroon to Uganda. The nicators occupy a wide range of forest and woodland habitats.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1093632 Passeriformes Birds of Sub-Saharan Africa Taxonomy articles created by Polbot