Quelea
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Swarm of bloodbeak weavers ( Quelea quelea ) |
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| Quelea | ||||||||||||
| Reichenbach , 1850 |
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Quelea is a genus from the family of weaver birds (Ploceidae), which occurs with three species in Africa . Itwas introduced in Madagascar . One species, the blood- billed weaver ( Quelea quelea ), forms huge flocks, which, along with those of the extinct pigeon ( Ectopistes migratorius ), are among the largest known bird populations. The bloodbeak weaver is considered a plague in many places because it destroys the harvest in large areas.
features
The Quelea species are small, short-tailed weaver birds that reach sizes from 11 to 12 cm. There is a sexual dimorphism between the males in the magnificent plumage and the females , while there are hardly any differences in plumage color between the non-breeding males and the females. The head of the male redhead weaver and the cardinal weaver ready to mate is dark red. The throat is dark red in the cardinal weaver and has black banding in the red-headed weaver. During the breeding season, the beak changes its color from dark brown to black. In the non-brooding male and in the female of the cardinal weaver and the red-headed weaver, the forehead, crown and neck are light brown with dark median stripes. A broad yellow stripe over the eyes runs across the face. The male of the bloodbeak weaver ready to mate is characterized by a black, pink or cream-colored face mask. The areas adjacent to the face mask at the top of the head, back of the head and throat vary between straw-colored and pink, depending on the individual.
habitat
The Quelea species inhabit a variety of habitat types including high grasslands often adjacent to bodies of water, agricultural areas including rice paddies, hard pointed grass, and wooded grasslands typically in arid areas, arid thorn savannah, bushy grasslands, and cultivated areas.
etymology
Quelea was originally the kind of epithet for the red-billed weaver , who in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus as Emberiza quelea was first described. The meaning of the name for the Afrotropic weaver birds is unclear. In 1973 MW Jeffreys made an etymological link between the plague-like swarms of the Queleas that devastated crops in modern Africa and the huge numbers of quail (Qualea) that invaded Israelite camps. He quotes the 4th book of Moses (Numbers XI, 31):
"A wind arose, sent from the Lord, and made quail come from the sea and let them fall on the camp, a day's journey around the camp, two cubits high on the earth."
Arthur Frederick Gotch , on the other hand, believes in an African trivial name , which he probably confused with Dioch , a name that was previously used as an English noun and with which the Yolof , a people from the Senegambia region , refer to the bloodbeak weaver .
Species and their distribution
- Cardinal weaver ( Quelea cardinalis ). Monotypical . Occurrence: South Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and further south to eastern Zambia.
- Red-headed weaver ( Quelea erythrops ). Monotypical. Occurrence: Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, São Tomé, Mali (Niger flood plain), Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Ghana to the east into southwestern Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, People's Republic of the Congo , the inland along the Congo and Ubangi Rivers, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi, Angola, Zambia, Mozambique and coastal eastern South Africa. Occasionally the species can be found in the northeast of Namibia, in the Caprivi region of Botswana and in Zimbabwe on the Zambezi.
- Bloodbeak weaver ( Quelea quelea ). Subspecies: Quelea quelea quelea , Quelea quelea aethiopica and Quelea quelea lathamii . Occurrence: Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Central African Republic, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Somalia, Gabon, People's Republic of Congo, Angola, right Congo estuary, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique south to Namibia as well as central, southern and eastern South Africa. Introduced in Madagascar.
status
The three Quelea species are not considered endangered. The bloodbeak weaver is considered the most common bird in the world with an estimated population of over 1.5 billion specimens. Some authors even suspect 3 to 10 billion copies.
literature
- C. Hilary Fry , Stuart Keith (Eds.): The Birds of Africa. Volume VII, Christopher Helm, London 2004, ISBN 0-7136-6531-9 .
- Adrian Craig: Family Plocedae (Weavers). In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, DA & de Juana, E. (Eds.) Handbook of the Birds of the World. Volume 15. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona, 2010.
Individual evidence
- ^ Jeffreys, MW, 1973: The quelea finch: the origin of the word. Bokrnakierie, 252: 46-48
- ^ Arthur Frederick Gotch: Birds: Their Latin Names Explained , Blandford Press, 1981. ISBN 0713711752
- ^ Robert A. Cheke, John F. Wenn, and Peter J. Jones: Forecasting suitable breeding conditions for the red-billed quelea Quelea quelea in southern Africa. Journal of Applied Ecology 44, 2007, pp. 523-533
- ↑ Guinness Book of World Records, 1988
