Weavers (Ploceidae)

Compact Weaver (Pachyphantes superciliosus) - HBW 15, p. 157

French: Tisserin gros-bec German: Augenbrauenweber Spanish: Tejedor Piquigrueso

Taxonomy: Hyphantornis superciliosus Shelley, 1873, West Africa.
Often placed in genus Ploceus, and then aligned with Asian Ploceus hypoxanthus, but may be closer to other weaver genera. Peculiar nest construction shared only with Amblyospiza albifrons, and has been suggested that the two are congeneric; DNA studies reveal that Amblyospiza differs from other ploceines at approximately tribal level, and present species possibly closest to that. Monotypic.

Distribution: Highly discontinuous: SW Senegal, coastal Guinea-Bissau, SE Guinea, N Sierra Leone, N Liberia, W & E Ivory Coast, S Ghana E to SW Nigeria (inland to Zaria), C & SE Cameroon, CW Gabon, N & S PRCongo, SW Central African Republic, S & SE Sudan, SW Ethiopia, Uganda (except E), also SW & NE DRCongo, extreme NW, N & E Angola, W Rwanda, NW Burundi, NW Tanzania (bordering L Victoria) and W Kenya.