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Waxbills (Estrildidae)

Red-billed Firefinch (Lagonosticta senegala) - HBW 15, p. 337

French: Amarante du Sénégal German: Senegalamarant Spanish: Amaranta Senegalesa
Other common names: Senegal/Crimson/Rosy Firefinch, Little Ruddy Waxbill

Taxonomy: Fringilla Senegala Linnaeus, 1766, Senegal.
Race brunneiceps intergrades with somaliensis and ruberrima in S Somalia and N Kenya. Proposed races guineensis (described from N'Zerekore, in SE Guinea) is synonymized with nominate, kikuyuensis (from Nairobi, in Kenya) is treated as synonym of ruberrima, and pallidicrissa (from Humpata, in Angola) and confidens (from near Bloemfontein, in Free State, in South Africa) are synonymized with rendalli. Six subspecies recognized.

Subspecies and Distribution:

  • senegala ( Linnaeus, 1766) - S Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Mali, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone and N Liberia E to Nigeria; also mesic oases in S Algeria and N Niger.
  • rhodopsis ( Heuglin, 1863) - E Nigeria, S Chad, N & C Cameroon, Central African Republic, W Sudan, and lowlands of W Eritrea and Ethiopia.
  • brunneiceps Sharpe, 1890 - Eritrea and Ethiopia above 1000 m, E Sudan N down R Nile, S Somalia and N Kenya.

     See all 6 subspecies
  • senegala ( Linnaeus, 1766) - S Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Mali, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone and N Liberia E to Nigeria; also mesic oases in S Algeria and N Niger.
  • rhodopsis ( Heuglin, 1863) - E Nigeria, S Chad, N & C Cameroon, Central African Republic, W Sudan, and lowlands of W Eritrea and Ethiopia.
  • brunneiceps Sharpe, 1890 - Eritrea and Ethiopia above 1000 m, E Sudan N down R Nile, S Somalia and N Kenya.
  • somaliensis Salvadori, 1894 - SE Ethiopia and Somalia.
  • ruberrima Reichenow, 1903 - N, E & SE DRCongo, Uganda and Kenya S to NE Angola, NE Zambia and N Malawi.
  • rendalli E. J. O. Hartert, 1898 - S Angola, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique S to N Namibia, N & E Botswana, Zimbabwe, much of South Africa and Swaziland.
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