The lowland tiny greenbul (''Phyllastrephus debilis''), is a species 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. It is found in eastern Africa. 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 ...

s are

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 ...

and

subtropical or tropical moist shrubland The subtropical zones or subtropics are geographical and climate zones to the north and south of the tropics. Geographically part of the temperate zones of both hemispheres, they cover the middle latitudes from to approximately 35° north and ...

Taxonomy and systematics

The lowland tiny greenbul was originally described in the genus ''

Xenocichla The bristlebills are a genus ''Bleda'' of passerine birds in the bulbul family Pycnonotidae. They are found in the forest understorey of western and central Africa. They forage for insects at or near ground-level, often near water. They will foll ...

'' (a synonym for ''Bleda''). Until 2009, the

montane tiny greenbul The montane tiny greenbul (''Phyllastrephus albigula'') is a species of songbird in the bulbul family, Pycnonotidae. It is endemic to the Usambara and Nguru Mountains in Tanzania. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist montane for ...

was considered as

conspecific Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species. Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organ ...

with the lowland tiny greenbul as the tiny bulbul. Some authorities continue to consider the two species as conspecific.

Subspecies

Two subspecies are recognized: * Rabai yellow-streaked bulbul (''P. d. rabai'') -

Hartert Ernst Johann Otto Hartert (29 October 1859 – 11 November 1933) was a widely published German ornithologist. Life and career Hartert was born in Hamburg, Germany on 29 October 1859. In July 1891, he married the illustrator Claudia Bernadine E ...

& van Someren, 1921: Found in south-eastern Kenya and north-eastern Tanzania * North Nyasa yellow-streaked bulbul (''P. d. debilis'') - ( Sclater, WL, 1899): Also named the smaller yellow-streaked bulbul. Found in south-eastern Tanzania to eastern Zimbabwe and southern Mozambique

References

External links

* Lowland tiny greenbul
Species text in The Atlas of Southern African Birds
Phyllastrephus Greenbuls Birds of East Africa Birds described in 1899 Taxa named by William Lutley Sclater Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Pycnonotidae-stub