The olive-headed greenbul (''Arizelocichla striifacies'') is a species 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 native to the eastern

Afromontane The Afromontane regions are subregions of the Afrotropical realm, one of the Earth's eight biogeographic realms, covering the plant and animal species found in the mountains of Africa and the southern Arabian Peninsula. The Afromontane regions o ...

Taxonomy

The olive-headed greenbul 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 1895 by the German ornithologists

Anton Reichenow Anton Reichenow (1 August 1847 in Charlottenburg – 6 July 1941 in Hamburg) was a German ornithologist and Herpetology, herpetologist. Reichenow was the son-in-law of Jean Cabanis, and worked at the Natural History Museum, Berlin, Natural Histor ...

and

Oscar Neumann Oscar Rudolph Neumann (3 September 1867 in Berlin – 17 May 1946 in Chicago) was a German ornithology, ornithologist and naturalist who explored and collected specimens in Africa. He fled via Cuba and settled in the United States to escape Na ...

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 ...

''Xenocichla striifacies''. The specific epithet combines the

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 ...

''stria'' meaning "furrow" of "striation" with ''facies'' meaning "countenance" or "appearance". This species is now one of 11 greenbuls placed in the genus ''

Arizelocichla ''Arizelocichla'' is a genus of greenbuls, songbirds in the bulbul family (biology), family (Pycnonotidae). The genus was revived in 2010 when twelve species of bulbuls from the genus ''Andropadus'' were separated and re-classified in the genus ...

'' that was introduced in 1905 by the American ornithologist Harry C. Oberholser. 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 ...

are recognised: * ''A. s. striifacies'' (

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 ...

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 ...

, 1895) – southeast Kenya to southwest Tanzania (Udzungwas) * ''A. s. olivaceiceps'' ( Shelley, 1896) – southwest Tanzania (Rungwe), Malawi and northwest Mozambique The two subspecies were formerly sometimes treated as separate species with the English name "stripe-faced greenbul" used for the

nominate subspecies In 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), but that can successfully interbreed. ...

and "olive-headed greenbul" for ''A. s. olivaceiceps''.

References

olive-headed greenbul Eastern Afromontane endemic bird species olive-headed greenbul {{Pycnonotidae-stub