The East Coast boubou or Zanzibar boubou (''Laniarius sublacteus'') is a species of

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 lightweigh ...

in the family Malaconotidae. It is found from southeast

Somalia Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constituti ...

to northeast

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...

, and

Zanzibar Zanzibar (; ; ) is an insular semi-autonomous province which united with Tanganyika in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. It is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of many small islands ...

island. Its natural

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

is 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 ...

. It has vestigial or no white wing stripe. Outer tail feathers may have white tips. Juveniles have no barring on underside. An all-black morph occurs in the area around the lower Jubba and Tana Rivers and on the Lamu Archipelago. Recent

cladistic Cladistics (; ) is an approach to biological classification in which organisms are categorized in groups (" clades") based on hypotheses of most recent common ancestry. The evidence for hypothesized relationships is typically shared derived char ...

analysis of

nDNA Nuclear DNA (nDNA), or nuclear deoxyribonucleic acid, is the DNA contained within each cell nucleus of a eukaryotic organism. It encodes for the majority of the genome in eukaryotes, with mitochondrial DNA and plastid DNA coding for the rest. It ...

BRM15

intron An intron is any nucleotide sequence within a gene that is not expressed or operative in the final RNA product. The word ''intron'' is derived from the term ''intragenic region'', i.e. a region inside a gene."The notion of the cistron .e., gene. ...

-15 and

mtDNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA ...

NADH dehydrogenase NADH dehydrogenase is an enzyme that converts nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) from its reduced form (NADH) to its oxidized form (NAD+). Members of the NADH dehydrogenase family and analogues are commonly systematically named using the for ...

subunit Subunit may refer to: *Subunit HIV vaccine, a class of HIV vaccine *Protein subunit, a protein molecule that assembles with other protein molecules *Monomer, a molecule that may bind chemically to other molecules to form a polymer *Sub-subunit, a ...

2 and

ATP synthase F0 subunit 6 ''MT-ATP6'' (or ''ATP6'') is a mitochondrial gene with the full name 'mitochondrially encoded ATP synthase membrane subunit 6' that encodes the ATP synthase Fo subunit 6 (or subunit/chain A). This subunit belongs to the Fo complex of the large, ...

sequence In mathematics, a sequence is an enumerated collection of objects in which repetitions are allowed and order matters. Like a set, it contains members (also called ''elements'', or ''terms''). The number of elements (possibly infinite) is calle ...

data indicates that the Ethiopian boubou is a

polyphyletic A polyphyletic group is an assemblage of organisms or other evolving elements that is of mixed evolutionary origin. The term is often applied to groups that share similar features known as homoplasies, which are explained as a result of converg ...

cryptic species complex In biology, a species complex is a group of closely related organisms that are so similar in appearance and other features that the boundaries between them are often unclear. The taxa in the complex may be able to hybridize readily with each oth ...

, which was once lumped with the

tropical boubou The tropical boubou or bell shrike (''Laniarius aethiopicus'') is a medium-sized passerine bird of sub-Saharan Africa. This very diverse "species" with its numerous subspecies and morphs has since long posed a taxonomic problem, and recent resea ...

black boubou The black boubou (''Laniarius nigerrimus''), also known as Somali boubou, Erlanger's boubou or coastal boubou, is a medium-size bushshrike. It was split from the tropical boubou as a result of DNA sequence analysis,Nguembock, B., Fjeldså J., Co ...

, and

Ethiopian boubou The Ethiopian boubou (''Laniarius aethiopicus'') is a species of bird in the family Malaconotidae. It is found in Eritrea, Ethiopia, northwest Somalia, and northern Kenya. Its natural habitat is moist savanna. Its breast and belly are pinkish. ...

References

East Coast boubou The East Coast boubou or Zanzibar boubou (''Laniarius sublacteus'') is a species of bird in the family Malaconotidae. It is found from southeast Somalia to northeast Tanzania, and Zanzibar island. Its natural habitat is moist savanna. It has v ...

Birds of East Africa

{{Malaconotidae-stub