The black-backed cisticola or black-necked cisticola (''Cisticola eximius'') is a species of passerine bird in the family Cisticolidae. It is found in Burkina Faso,

Chad Chad (; ar, تشاد , ; french: Tchad, ), officially the Republic of Chad, '; ) is a landlocked country at the crossroads of North and Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic ...

Republic of the Congo The Republic of the Congo (french: République du Congo, ln, Republíki ya Kongó), also known as Congo-Brazzaville, the Congo Republic or simply either Congo or the Congo, is a country located in the western coast of Central Africa to the w ...

Ivory Coast Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire, officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital is Yamoussoukro, in the centre of the country, while its largest city and economic centre is ...

Eritrea Eritrea ( ; ti, ኤርትራ, Ertra, ; ar, إرتريا, ʾIritriyā), officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of Eastern Africa, with its capital and largest city at Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia ...

, Ethiopia, Ghana,

Guinea Guinea ( ),, fuf, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫, italic=no, Gine, wo, Gine, nqo, ߖߌ߬ߣߍ߫, bm, Gine officially the Republic of Guinea (french: République de Guinée), is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the we ...

, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, and Uganda. Its natural habitats are

subtropical or tropical dry lowland grassland Tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands is a terrestrial biome defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. The biome is dominated by grass and/or shrubs located in semi-arid to semi-humid climate regions of subtropical and t ...

and subtropical or tropical seasonally wet or flooded lowland grassland.

Taxonomy

The black-backed cisticola was described by the German explorer and ornithologist Theodor von Heuglin in 1869 from a specimen collected near the Bahr el Ghazal River in South Sudan. He 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 ...

''Drymoeca eximia''. The

specific epithet 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 ...

''eximius'' is the Latin for "select" or "distinguished". The species is now placed in the genus '' Cisticola'' which was erected by the German naturalist

Johann Jakob Kaup Johann Jakob von Kaup (10 April 1803 – 4 July 1873) was a German naturalist. A proponent of natural philosophy, he believed in an innate mathematical order in nature and he attempted biological classifications based on the Quinarian system. Kaup ...

in 1829. Three

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: * ''C. e. occidens'' Lynes, 1930 – south Senegal to Nigeria * ''C. e. winneba'' Lynes, 1931 – south Ghana * ''C. e. eximius'' (Heuglin, 1869) – Congo and Central African Republic to Eritrea, Ethiopia, west Kenya and north Tanzania

References

black-backed cisticola Birds of West Africa Birds of Sub-Saharan Africa black-backed cisticola Taxa named by Theodor von Heuglin Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Cisticolidae-stub