The slender-billed greenbul (''Stelgidillas gracilirostris'') is a species in the

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

genus ''Stelgidillas'' of 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 of

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped') which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines generally have an anisodactyl arrangement of their ...

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. It is found in western and 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 ...

, and 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 ...

Taxonomy and systematics

The slender-billed greenbul was formally described in 1844 by the English naturalist

Hugh Edwin Strickland Hugh Edwin Strickland (2 March 1811 – 14 September 1853) was an English geologist, ornithology, ornithologist, naturalist and systematist. Through the British Association, he proposed a series of rules for the nomenclature of organisms in zool ...

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 ...

''Andropadus gracilirostris'' from a specimen collected on the island of Fernando Pó (now

Bioko Bioko (; ; ; historically known as Fernando Pó, ) is an island of Equatorial Guinea. It is located south of the coast of Cameroon, and northwest of the northernmost part of mainland Equatorial Guinea. Malabo, on the north coast of the is ...

) off the west coast of Africa. A

molecular phylogenetic Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...

study of the bulbuls published in 2007 found that ''

Andropadus The sombre greenbul (''Andropadus importunus'') is a member of the bulbul family of passerine birds. It is a resident breeder in coastal bush, evergreen forest and dry shrub land in eastern and southern Africa. It is the only member of the genus ...

'' was non-monophyletic. In the subsequent rearrangement to create monophyletic genera, the slender-billed greenbul was moved to the genus ''Stelgidillas'' that had been introduced by Harry C. Oberholser in 1899.

Former species

Formerly, some authorities also considered the following species (or subspecies) as species within the genus ''Stelgidillas'': * Toro olive greenbul (as ''Stelgidillas hypochloris'')

Subspecies

Two

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 ...

of the slender-billed greenbul are recognized: * Congo slender-billed greenbul (''S. g. gracilirostris'') - Strickland, 1844 — from Senegal and Guinea-Bissau to southern Sudan, western Kenya, western Tanzania, south-central Democratic Republic Congo and north-western Angola * Kikuyu slender-billed greenbul (''S. g. percivali'') - (

Neumann Neumann () is a German language, German surname, with its origins in the pre-7th-century (Old English) word ''wikt:neowe, neowe'' meaning "new", with ''wikt:mann, mann'', meaning man. The English form of the name is Newman. Von Neumann is a varian ...

, 1903) — central Kenya

References

slender-billed greenbul slender-billed greenbul Birds of the Gulf of Guinea Birds of the African tropical rainforest slender-billed greenbul Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Pycnonotidae-stub