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Rynchops Flavirostris
The African skimmer (''Rynchops flavirostris'') is a species of bird belonging to the skimmer genus ''Rynchops'' in the family Laridae. It is found along rivers, lakes and lagoons in Sub-Saharan Africa. Description African skimmers have long wings, with a black back, hindneck, and crown. The forehead and rest of the body is white, with a bright, long, orange beak that ends with a yellow tip (black tip when immature), hence the specific name ''flavirostris'', "yellow-beak." Their short forked tail is white, and their legs are bright red. The average size is about long. Their voice is a sharp "kip-kip". Their bill structure is unique; the lower mandible is much longer than the upper mandible, and is flattened sideways like scissor blades. Distribution and habitat The African skimmer is found from Senegal to northern Congo River and southern Nile Valley, southern Tanzania to the Zambezi Valley, and then to KwaZulu-Natal Province (South Africa) and Angola. They live at large tro ...
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Skimmer (bird)
The skimmers, forming the genus ''Rynchops'', are tern-like birds in the family Laridae. The genus comprises three species found in South Asia, Africa, and the Americas. They were formerly known as the scissorbills. The three species are the only birds with distinctive uneven bills, where the lower mandible is longer than the upper. This remarkable adaptation allows them to fish in a unique way, flying low and fast over streams. Their lower mandible skims or slices over the water's surface, ready to snap shut any small fish unable to dart clear. The skimmers are sometimes included within the gull family Laridae but separated in other treatments which consider them as a sister group of the terns. The black skimmer has an additional adaptation and is the only species of bird known to have slit-shaped pupils. Their bills fall within their field of binocular vision, which enables them to carefully position their bill and capture prey. They are agile in flight and gather in large flock ...
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Rynchops
The skimmers, forming the genus ''Rynchops'', are tern-like birds in the family Laridae. The genus comprises three species found in South Asia, Africa, and the Americas. They were formerly known as the scissorbills. The three species are the only birds with distinctive uneven bills, where the lower mandible is longer than the upper. This remarkable adaptation allows them to fish in a unique way, flying low and fast over streams. Their lower mandible skims or slices over the water's surface, ready to snap shut any small fish unable to dart clear. The skimmers are sometimes included within the gull family Laridae but separated in other treatments which consider them as a sister group of the terns. The black skimmer has an additional adaptation and is the only species of bird known to have slit-shaped pupils. Their bills fall within their field of binocular vision, which enables them to carefully position their bill and capture prey. They are agile in flight and gather in large flock ...
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Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot
Louis Pierre Vieillot (10 May 1748, Yvetot – 24 August 1830, Sotteville-lès-Rouen) was a French ornithologist. Vieillot is the author of the first scientific descriptions and Linnaean names of a number of birds, including species he collected himself in the West Indies and North America and South American species discovered but not formally named by Félix de Azara and his translator Sonnini de Manoncourt. He was among the first ornithologists to study changes in plumage and one of the first to study live birds. At least 77 of the genera erected by Vieillot are still in use. Biography Vieillot was born in Yvetot. He represented his family's business interests in Saint-Domingue (Haiti) on Hispaniola, but fled to the United States during the Haitian rebellions that followed the French Revolution. On Buffon's advice, he collected material for the ''Histoire naturelle des oiseaux de l'Amérique Septentrionale,'' the first two volumes of which were published in France beginning i ...
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Birds Of Sub-Saharan Africa
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight skeleton. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the bee hummingbird to the ostrich. There are about ten thousand living species, more than half of which are passerine, or "perching" birds. Birds have whose development varies according to species; the only known groups without wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds. Wings, which are modified forelimbs, gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the loss of flight in some birds, including ratites, penguins, and diverse endemic island species. The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbirds, have further evolved for swimming. Birds ...
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Birds Of Africa
This is a list of the bird species recorded in Africa. The area covered by this list is the Africa region defined by the American Birding Association's listing rules. In addition to the continent itself, the area includes Madagascar, Mauritius, Rodrigues, Seychelles, Cape Verde, the Comoro Islands, Zanzibar and the Canary Islands, São Tomé and Príncipe and Annobón in the Gulf of Guinea. It does not include Socotra in the Arabian Sea, Madeira or the Azores. This list is that of the African Bird Club (ABC) supplemented by ''Bird Checklists of the World'' (Avibase) and ''The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World''.Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2021. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2021. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/ Retrieved August 25, 2021 This list's taxonomic treatment (designation and sequenc ...
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White-fronted Plover
The white-fronted plover or white-fronted sandplover (''Charadrius marginatus'') is a small (45-50 g) shorebird of the family Charadriidae that inhabits sandy beaches, dunes, mudflats and the shores of rivers and lakes in sub-saharan Africa and Madagascar. It nests in small shallow scrapes in the ground and lays clutches of one to three eggs. The species is monogamous and long-lived, with a life expectancy of approximately 12 years. The vast majority of pairs that mate together stay together during the following years of breeding and retain the same territory. The white-fronted plover has a similar appearance to the Kentish plover, with a white fore crown and dark bands connecting the eyes to the bill. Subspecies Four or five subspecies are recognized, which vary in the colour shade of the neck collar and breast: * ''C. m. arenaceus'' (Clancey, 1971) occurs from southern Mozambique to the south-western Cape Province in South Africa. * ''C. m. marginatus'' (Vieillot, 1818), the no ...
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Pied Avocet
The pied avocet (''Recurvirostra avosetta'') is a large black and white wader in the avocet and stilt family, Recurvirostridae. They breed in temperate Europe and across the Palearctic to Central Asia then on to the Russian Far East. It is a migratory species and most winter in Africa or southern Asia. Some remain to winter in the mildest parts of their range, for example in southern Spain and southern England. The pied avocet is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies. Taxonomy The pied avocet was one of the many bird species originally described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae'', where it was given the binomial name of ''Recurvirostra avosetta''. This species gets its English and scientific names from the Venetian word ''avosetta''. It appeared first in Ulisse Aldrovandi's ''Ornithologia'' (1603). While the name may refer to black and white outfits once wor ...
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Collared Pratincole
The collared pratincole (''Glareola pratincola''), also known as the common pratincole or red-winged pratincole, is a wader in the pratincole family, Glareolidae. As with other pratincoles, it is native to the Old World. Taxonomy The collared pratincole was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1766 in the twelfth edition of his ''Systema Naturae''. He placed it with the swallows and swifts in the genus ''Hirundo'' and coined the binomial name ''Hirundo pratincola''. The collared pratincole is now placed in the genus ''Glareola'' that was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760. The genus name is a diminutive of Latin ''glarea'', "gravel", referring to a typical nesting habitat for pratincoles. The species name ''pratincola'' means an inhabitant of meadows, from Latin ''pratum, prati'', "meadow" and ''incola'', "inhabitant", from ''incolere'', "to inhabit". Two subspecies are recognised: * ''Glareola pratincola pratincola' ...
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Petrocephalus
''Petrocephalus'' is a genus of ray-finned fish in the family Mormyridae. All the fish species of this genus are endemic to Africa. Species There are currently 46 recognized species in this genus: * '' Petrocephalus ansorgii'' Boulenger 1903 (Agberi mormyrid) * '' Petrocephalus arnegardi'' Lavoué & Sullivan 2014 Lavoué, S. & Sullivan, J.P. (2014): ''Petrocephalus boboto'' and ''Petrocephalus arnegardi'', two new species of African electric fish (Osteoglossomorpha, Mormyridae) from the Congo River basin. ''ZooKeys, 400: 43–65.'' (Arnegard mormyrid) * ''Petrocephalus balayi'' Sauvage 1883 (Ogooue River mormyrid) * '' Petrocephalus balteatus'' Rochebrune 1885 (Churchill snoutfish) * '' Petrocephalus bane'' ( Lacépède, 1803) * '' Petrocephalus binotatus'' Pellegrin 1924 (Ikengo mormyrid) * '' Petrocephalus boboto'' Lavoué & Sullivan 2014 (Boboto mormyrid) * ''Petrocephalus bovei'' (Valenciennes 1847) (baby whale) * ''Petrocephalus catostoma'' ( Günther 1866) (Churchil ...
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Aplocheilichthys
The banded lampeye (''Aplocheilichthys spilauchen'') is a species of poeciliid that is native to Africa, ranging from Senegal to Angola. It is mainly found in coastal brackish habitats (only infrequently in pure fresh or salt water) such as river mouths, lagoons and mangrove swamps. It reaches up to in total length. Description Banded lampeyes are small killifish, with an average length of with a somewhat cylindrical body and short, rounded fins. It has round scales and a dorsally flattened head with the a terminal mouth. They are a pale cream in colour with an iridescent silvery blue band running along the flanks, this band is more marked towards the tail. Males have the rear of the body, close to the tail, marked with vertical bars which are the same colour as the band along the flanks, their fins will be more intensively coloured than those of the females. There is a bright spot above the, which gives rise to the common name lampeye. Distribution Banded lampeyes are found in ...
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Hepsetus
''Hepsetus'' is a genus of African fishes, the African pikes or African pike characins, in the order Characiformes. It is the sole genus in the family Hepsetidae. It was long believed that only a single widespread species existed, ''H. odoe'', but studies in 2011–2013 have shown that this species is restricted to parts of West and Central Africa. The well-known species of southern Africa, including Kafue River, is '' Hepsetus cuvieri''. These predatory fish reach up to in length. Species There are currently six recognized species in this genus: * '' Hepsetus cuvieri'' ( Castelnau, 1861) * ''Hepsetus kingsleyae'' Vreven, Decru & Snoeks, 2013 * '' Hepsetus lineatus'' ( Pellegrin, 1926) * '' Hepsetus microlepis'' ( Boulenger, 1901) * '' Hepsetus occidentalis'' Decru, Snoeks & Vreven, 2013 * ''Hepsetus odoe'' (Bloch, 1794) Synonym: * ''Hepsetus akawo'' Decru, Vreven & Snoeks, 2012 = ''Hepsetus odoe ''Hepsetus odoe'', the African pike characin, is a predatory freshwater c ...
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Marcusenius
''Marcusenius'' is a genus of the elephantfish group native to Africa. Its members are highly diverse in size, with the smallest species reaching less than and the largest more than . The genus is named after Johann Marcusen. Species There are currently 47 recognized species in this genus: * '' Marcusenius abadii'' ( Boulenger 1901) (Djebba mormyrid) * ''Marcusenius altisambesi'' B. J. Kramer, P. H. Skelton, van der Bank & Wink 2007 (bulldog) * '' Marcusenius angolensis'' ( Boulenger 1905) (Quanza mormyrid) * '' Marcusenius annamariae'' ( Parenzan 1939) (Annamaria mormyrid) * '' Marcusenius bentleyi'' ( Boulenger 1897) (Bentley's mormyrid) * '' Marcusenius brucii'' ( Boulenger 1910) (Ogun mormyrid) * '' Marcusenius caudisquamatus'' Maake, Gon & Swartz 2014Maake, P.A., Gon, O. & Swartz, E.R. (2014): Descriptions of three new species of ''Marcusenius'' Gill, 1862 (Teleostei: Mormyridae) from South Africa and Mozambique. ''Zootaxa, 3780 (3): 455–480.'' (Mhlatuze mormyr ...
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