The Senegal coucal (''Centropus senegalensis'') is a member of the

cuckoo Cuckoos are birds in the Cuculidae ( ) family, the sole taxon in the order Cuculiformes ( ). The cuckoo family includes the common or European cuckoo, roadrunners, koels, malkohas, couas, coucals, and anis. The coucals and anis are somet ...

order 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 ...

s, the Cuculiformes, which also includes the

roadrunner The roadrunners (genus ''Geococcyx''), also known as chaparral birds or chaparral cocks, are two species of fast-running ground cuckoos with long tails and crests. They are found in the southwestern and south-central United States, Mexico and C ...

s and the anis. It is a medium-sized member of its

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 ...

and is found in lightly-wooded country and savannah in central and southern Africa.

Taxonomy

In 1760, the French zoologist

Mathurin Jacques Brisson Mathurin Jacques Brisson (; 30 April 1723 – 23 June 1806) was a French zoologist and natural philosophy, natural philosopher. Brisson was born on 30 April 1723 at Fontenay-le-Comte in the Vendée department of western France. Note that page 14 ...

included a description and an illustration of the Senegal coucal in the fourth volume of his ''Ornithologie'' based on a specimen collected in Senegal. He used the French name ''Le coucou de Sénégal'' and the Latin name ''Cuculus Senegalensis''. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the

International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) is an organization dedicated to "achieving stability and sense in the scientific naming of animals". Founded in 1895, it currently comprises 26 commissioners from 20 countries. Orga ...

. When in 1766, the Swedish naturalist

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

updated his ''

Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the Orthographic ligature, ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Sweden, Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the syste ...

'' for the twelfth edition he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson in his ''Ornithologie''. One of these was the Senegal coucal. Linnaeus included a terse description, 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 ...

''Cuculus senegalensis'' and cited Brisson's work. The Senegal coucal is now one of around 30 species placed in the genus '' Centropus'' that was introduced in 1811 by the German zoologist

Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger (19 November 1775 – 10 May 1813) was a German entomologist and zoologist. He founded the entomological periodical ''Magazin für Insektenkunde.'' The plant genus '' Illigera'' is named in his honour. Biography Illi ...

. 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 ...

''kentron'' meaning "spur" or "spike" with ''pous'' meaning "foot". 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: * ''C. s. aegyptius'' ( Gmelin, JF, 1788) – northeast Egypt * ''C. s. senegalensis'' (

Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

, 1766) – Senegal and Gambia to Eritrea south to northwest Angola, south-central DR Congo and Uganda * ''C. s. flecki'' Reichenow, 1893 – east Angola to northeast Namibia and southwest Tanzania south to Malawi and Zimbabwe

Description

This is a medium-sized species at in length. Its crown, nape and upper parts, bill, legs and long tail are black, the eyes are red, the wings are chestnut, and the underparts are creamy white, with blackish barring on the flanks. The sexes are similar, but juveniles are browner and more heavily barred above, with buff to cinnamon, barred and streaked underparts.

Distribution and habitat

It is a widespread

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

distributed through much of central and southern

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 ...

south of the

Sahara Desert The Sahara (, ) is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of , it is the largest hot desert in the world and the list of deserts by area, third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Ar ...

. The range extends from Senegal in the west to Ethiopia and Kenya in the east, and Angola and Congo to the south. A separate population in southern Africa is centred on Zambia, Zimbabwe and northern Botswana. The Senegal coucal is a bird of grassy habitats with trees, such as bushes and

savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach th ...

Behaviour and ecology

The Senegal coucal takes a wide range of

insect Insects (from Latin ') are Hexapoda, hexapod invertebrates of the class (biology), class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (Insect morphology#Head, head, ...

caterpillar Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths). As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder ...

s and small

vertebrate Vertebrates () are animals with a vertebral column (backbone or spine), and a cranium, or skull. The vertebral column surrounds and protects the spinal cord, while the cranium protects the brain. The vertebrates make up the subphylum Vertebra ...

s. It occasionally eats other food items. It nests off the ground in low vegetation, and the typical

clutch A clutch is a mechanical device that allows an output shaft to be disconnected from a rotating input shaft. The clutch's input shaft is typically attached to a motor, while the clutch's output shaft is connected to the mechanism that does th ...

is two to four

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the ...

s laid in a large nest built from stalks and leaves.

Status

This is an abundant species, which advertises its presence with a loud ''ook-ook-ook'' call. It has a very wide range and no particular threats have been identified so the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the stat ...

has assessed its conservation status as being of "

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been evaluated and categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wil ...

References

* Senegal coucal
Species text in The Atlas of Southern African Birds
{{Taxonbar, from=Q749711 Senegal coucal Birds of Africa Senegal coucal Senegal coucal