The black-and-white mannikin (''Spermestes bicolor'') also black-and-white munia or red-backed mannikin, is a species of estrildid finch, widely occurring throughout the African tropical rainforest. It has an estimated global extent of occurrence of 4,200,000 km². It is found in moist

savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to ...

and

subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests (TSMF), also known as tropical moist forest, is a subtropical and tropical forest habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Description TSMF is generally found in large, discont ...

habitat. The status of the species is evaluated as

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

. They are seedeaters, but are known to feed on algae. The black-and-white mannikin was formally described in 1843 by the British zoologist and collector Louis Fraser from a specimen collected near

Cape Palmas Cape Palmas is a headland on the extreme southeast end of the coast of Liberia, Africa, at the extreme southwest corner of the northern half of the continent. The Cape itself consists of a small, rocky peninsula connected to the mainland by a san ...

in Liberia. He placed the species in the genus ''

Amadina ''Amadina'' is a genus of estrildid finches that are found in Africa. Taxonomy The genus ''Amadina'' was introduced in 1827 by the English naturalist William John Swainson with the cut-throat finch as the type species. The name ''Amadina'' is a ...

'' and coined the

binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

''Amadina bicolor''. The black-and-white mannikin is now one of the four species placed in the genus ''

Spermestes ''Spermestes'' is a genus of small seed-eating birds in the family Estrildidae. They are distributed across Sub-Saharan Africa. Taxonomy The genus ''Spermestes'' was introduced in 1837 by the English naturalist William John Swainson to accomm ...

'' that was introduced in 1837 by

William John Swainson William John Swainson FLS, FRS (8 October 1789 – 6 December 1855), was an English ornithologist, malacologist, conchologist, entomologist and artist. Life Swainson was born in Dover Place, St Mary Newington, London, the eldest son of ...

. Four

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...

are recognised: * ''S. b. bicolor'' ( Fraser, 1843) – Guinea-Bissau to Cameroon * ''S. b. poensis'' (Fraser, 1843) – south Cameroon to south Sudan, southwest Ethiopia, west Kenya and the island of Bioko * ''S. b. woltersi'' ( Schouteden, 1956) – southeast DR Congo and northwest Zambia * ''S. b. nigriceps'' Cassin, 1852 – central Kenya and south Somalia to east Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe and east South Africa The subspecies ''S. b. woltersi'' and ''S. b. nigriceps'' have sometimes been considered as a separate species, the red-backed mannikin.

References

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

Birds of the Gulf of Guinea Birds of the African tropical rainforest black-and-white mannikin black-and-white mannikin {{Estrildidae-stub