The Sakalava weaver (''Ploceus sakalava'') sometimes known as the Sakalava fody 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

Ploceidae Ploceidae is a family of small passerine birds, many of which are called weavers, weaverbirds, weaver finches and bishops. These names come from the nests of intricately woven vegetation created by birds in this family. In most recent classifica ...

. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

. The bird is long and weighs .

Taxonomy

The Sakalava weaver was first described by

Gustav Hartlaub Karel Johan Gustav Hartlaub (8 November 1814 – 29 November 1900) was a German physician and ornithologist. Hartlaub was born in Bremen, and studied at Bonn and Berlin before graduating in medicine at Göttingen. In 1840, he began to study and co ...

in 1861, based on a specimen collected by Victor Sganzin during an expedition in 1831–32 on Madagascar. The species

epithet An epithet (, ), also byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) known for accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, di ...

''sakalava'' is derived from the

Sakalava The Sakalava are an ethnic groups of Madagascar, ethnic group of Madagascar. They are found on the western and northwest region of the island, in a band along the coast. The Sakalava are one of the smaller ethnic groups, constituting about 6.2 pe ...

, whose name means 'people of the long valleys'. The first English name was given to the bird only in 1891 by

James Sibree James Sibree (1836–1929) was an English missionary in Madagascar with an interest in the natural history and cultural history of the island. He was a contemporary of the French naturalist Alfred Grandidier and wrote detailed books about the f ...

, who named it Sakalava Weaver-bird. ''Sakalava weaver'' has been designated the official name by the

International Ornithological Committee The International Ornithologists' Union, formerly known as the International Ornithological Committee, is a group of about 200 international ornithologists, and is responsible for the International Ornithological Congress and other international ...

(IOC). Another English name that is sometimes used is ''Sakalava Fody''. Local names in the

Malagasy language Malagasy (; ) is an Austronesian language and the national language of Madagascar. Malagasy is the westernmost Malayo-Polynesian language, brought to Madagascar by the settlement of Austronesian peoples from the Sunda islands around the 5th ce ...

include , , , and . Based on recent DNA-analysis, the genus ''Ploceus'' is almost certainly

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 ...

. If all species currently included in the genus would remain and the genus would be made monophyletic, it would have to encompass the entire subfamily Ploceinae. The Ploceinae can be divided into two groups. In the first group, the widowbirds and bishops (genus ''

Euplectes ''Euplectes'' is a genus of passerine bird in the weaver family, Ploceidae. It contains the bishops and widowbirds. They are all native to Africa south of the Sahara. It is believed that all birds in the genus are probably polygynous. The gen ...

'') are sister to a clade in which the genera '' Foudia'' and ''

Quelea ''Quelea'' is a genus of small passerine birds that belongs to the weaver family Ploceidae, confined to Africa. These are small-sized, sparrow- or finch-like gregarious birds, with bills adapted to eating seeds. Queleas may be nomadic over vas ...

'' are closest relatives and which further includes the Asiatic species of ''Ploceus'', i.e. '' P. manyar'', '' P. philippinus'', '' P. benghalensis'', '' P. megarhynchus'', (and '' P. hypoxanthus'', although untested). Since

Georges Cuvier Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, Baron Cuvier (; 23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier, was a French natural history, naturalist and zoology, zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuvier ...

picked ''P. philippinus'' as the

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 ...

, these five species would logically remain assigned to the genus ''Ploceus''. Basic to the second group is a clade consisting of both species sofar included in ''Ploceus'' that live on Madagascar, '' P. nelicourvi'' and ''P. sakalava'', and these are morphologically very distinctive from the remaining species. These two species could in future be assigned to the genus ''Nelicurvius'' that was erected by

Charles Lucien Bonaparte Charles Lucien Jules Laurent Bonaparte, 2nd Prince of Canino and Musignano (24 May 1803 – 29 July 1857), was a French naturalist and ornithologist. Lucien and his wife had twelve children, including Cardinal Lucien Bonaparte. Life and career ...

in 1850, but which was merged with ''Ploceus'' later on. This second group further contains the genera ''

Malimbus ''Malimbus'' is a genus of birds in the family Ploceidae. It was erected by the French ornithologist Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot in 1805. The genus contains the following ten species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classificat ...

'' and ''

Anaplectes ''Anaplectes'' is a genus of African birds in the weaver family Ploceidae. Taxonomy The genus ''Anaplectes'' was introduced in 1863 by the German naturalist Ludwig Reichenbach. The type species was subsequently designated by Richard Bowdler Shar ...

'', and all remaining ''Ploceus'' species.

Distribution

It is found in small flocks. Its natural habitat is the dry lowland forests and scrubland of the north, west and south of

. 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 dry

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

s and subtropical or tropical dry

shrubland Shrubland, scrubland, scrub, brush, or bush is a plant community characterized by vegetation dominated by shrubs, often also including grasses, herbs, and geophytes. Shrubland may either occur naturally or be the result of human activity. It m ...

Description

Mco pgoujujijoolxujyn The adult male has a yellow head and upper breast during the breeding season, with a pale grey belly and light and brown wings with white wing-tips. The male has distinctive red eye-rings and silver bill extending with a 'V' shape into the forehead. The non-breeding male has a dark brown head and pale grey breast, flanked with white. The female has the appearance more of a

house sparrow The house sparrow (''Passer domesticus'') is a bird of the sparrow family Passeridae, found in most parts of the world. It is a small bird that has a typical length of and a mass of . Females and young birds are coloured pale brown and grey, a ...

with pale almost white breast and duller slightly pink bill. The female also has a red eye-ring and sometimes small flashes of red around the eye.

Ecology and behaviour

Like in other true weaver birds, the roofed nest is woven from strips of grass leaf, but the Sakalava weaver also uses strips of palm fond, or thatching and weaving materials collected in villages. The top is woven directly around a branch or it is attached from a short woven stalk. It is shaped like a

retort In a chemistry laboratory, a retort is a device used for distillation or dry distillation of substances. It consists of a spherical vessel with a long downward-pointing neck. The liquid to be distilled is placed in the vessel and heated. The n ...

, with a pear-shaped nesting chamber and a long entrance tunnel hanging from the top. The fabric is thin but dense, although less so with the tunnel, that may be slightly transparent and which may also be somewhat wider at both ends.

Gallery

Sakalava Weaver SJ1.JPG, Sakalava weaver near Toliara Sakalava Weaver SJ2.JPG, Sakalava weaver at Soalara Weaver bird nesting (3445341247).jpg, Male sakalava weaver Image:Sakalava Weaver nests RWD.jpg, Nests Ploceus sakalava MHNT 228 Province de Diego-Suarez.jpg, Eggs of ''Ploceus sakalava'' MHNT

References

External links

Sakalava weaver
- Species text in Weaver Watch.

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1306918 Sakalava weaver Endemic birds of Madagascar Sakalava weaver Taxonomy articles created by Polbot