''Chlorocichla'' is a genus of

songbird A songbird is a bird belonging to the suborder Passeri of the perching birds (Passeriformes). Another name that is sometimes seen as the scientific or vernacular name is Oscines, from Latin ''oscen'', "songbird". The Passeriformes contains 500 ...

in the

bulbul The bulbuls are members of a family, Pycnonotidae, of medium-sized passerine songbirds, which also includes greenbuls, brownbuls, leafloves, and bristlebills. The family is distributed across most of Africa and into the Middle East, tropical As ...

family, Pycnonotidae. They are mainly present throughout the African tropical rainforest, excepted the

yellow-bellied greenbul The yellow-bellied greenbul (''Chlorocichla flaviventris'') is a species of songbird in the bulbul family, Pycnonotidae. It is found in eastern, southern and west-central Africa. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forests, su ...

, native to the

miombo The Miombo woodland is a tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome (in the World Wide Fund for Nature scheme) located primarily in Central Africa. It includes four woodland savanna ecoregions (listed below) characterized b ...

woodlands.

Taxonomy

The genus ''Chlorocichla'' was introduced in 1882 by the English ornithologist

Richard Bowdler Sharpe Richard Bowdler Sharpe (22 November 1847 – 25 December 1909) was an English zoologist and ornithologist who worked as curator of the bird collection at the British Museum of natural history. In the course of his career he published several mono ...

. Sharpe did not specify a

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

but this was designated as the

Anton Reichenow Anton Reichenow (1 August 1847 in Charlottenburg – 6 July 1941 in Hamburg) was a German ornithologist and herpetologist. Reichenow was the son-in-law of Jean Cabanis, and worked at the Natural History Museum of Berlin from 1874 to 1921. He wa ...

in 1904–1905. The genus name combines the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

''khlōros'' meaning "pale green" or "yellow" with ''kikhlē'' meaning "thrush".

Species

The genus contains five species: * Joyful greenbul (''Chlorocichla laetissima'') * Prigogine's greenbul (''Chlorocichla prigoginei'') * Falkenstein's greenbul (''Chlorocichla falkensteini'') *

Yellow-bellied greenbul The yellow-bellied greenbul (''Chlorocichla flaviventris'') is a species of songbird in the bulbul family, Pycnonotidae. It is found in eastern, southern and west-central Africa. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forests, su ...

(''Chlorocichla flaviventris'') * Simple greenbul (''Chlorocichla simplex'')

Former species

Formerly, some authorities also considered the following species (or subspecies) as species within the genus ''Chlorocichla'': *

Honeyguide greenbul The honeyguide greenbul (''Baeopogon indicator'') is a species of songbird in the bulbul family, Pycnonotidae. It is widespread throughout the African tropical rainforest. Taxonomy and systematics The honeyguide greenbul was originally describ ...

(as ''Chlorocichla indicator'', now ''Baeopogon indicator'') *

Yellow-throated leaflove The yellow-throated leaflove (''Atimastillas flavicollis'') is a species of leaflove in the bulbul family of passerine birds. It is the only species of the monotypic genus ''Atimastillas''. The yellow-throated leaflove is found in western and ce ...

(as ''Chlorocichla flavicollis'', now ''Atimastillas flavicollis'')

References

Bird genera Greenbuls Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Pycnonotidae-stub