The Annobón paradise flycatcher (''Terpsiphone smithii'') is a medium-sized species 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 are distinguished from other orders of birds by th ...

bird 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 lightweig ...

in the family Monarchidae. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

Annobón Island Annobón ( es, Provincia de Annobón; pt, Ano-Bom), and formerly as ''Anno Bom'' and ''Annabona'', is a province (smallest province in both area and population) of Equatorial Guinea consisting of the island of Annobón, formerly also Pigalu an ...

in Equatorial Guinea.

Taxonomy and systematics

The Annobón paradise flycatcher was previously classified with the

Old World flycatcher The Old World flycatchers are a large family, the Muscicapidae, of small passerine birds restricted to the Old World (Europe, Africa and Asia), with the exception of several vagrants and two species, Bluethroat (''Luscinia svecica)'' and Northe ...

family Muscicapidae, but the paradise flycatchers, monarch flycatchers, and allies are now placed in a separate family, Monarchidae, which has most of its members in Australasia and tropical southern Asia. Within its genus, the Annobón paradise flycatcher was split from the

red-bellied paradise flycatcher The red-bellied paradise flycatcher (''Terpsiphone rufiventer''), also known as the black-headed paradise flycatcher, is a medium-sized passerine bird of the family of monarch flycatchers. It is native to intra-tropical forests of Africa. The ma ...

in 2009 by the IOC. Some other authorities continue to treat the Annobón paradise flycatcher as a subspecies of the red-bellied paradise flycatcher (''T. rufiventer smithii'').

Habitat

It is found in tropical forests.

References

Terpsiphone Endemic birds of Annobón Birds described in 1843 {{Monarchidae-stub