The red-bellied paradise flycatcher (''Terpsiphone rufiventer''), also known as the black-headed paradise flycatcher, is a medium-sized

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by th ...

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 lightweig ...

of the family of

monarch flycatcher The monarchs (family Monarchidae) comprise a family of over 100 passerine birds which includes shrikebills, paradise flycatchers, and magpie-larks. Monarchids are small insectivorous songbirds with long tails. They inhabit forest or woodland a ...

s. It is native to intra-tropical forests of Africa. The male bird is about long and has a black head, a mainly chestnut body, and a tail with streamers nearly twice as long as the body. The colouring is somewhat variable across the bird's range. Both females and juveniles lack the tail streamers and are a duller brown colour. It is closely related to the

African paradise flycatcher The African paradise flycatcher (''Terpsiphone viridis'') is a medium-sized passerine bird. The two central tail feathers of the male are extended into streamers that commonly are more than twice as long as the body. The female tail feathers are ...

, and the two can hybridise.

Taxonomy and systematics

The name "red-bellied paradise flycatcher" is also used as an alternate name for Bedford's paradise flycatcher.

Subspecies

Ten subspecies are recognized: * ''T. r. rufiventer'' - ( Swainson, 1837): Found in Senegal, Gambia and western Guinea * ''T. r. nigriceps'' - ( Hartlaub, 1855): Originally described as a separate species. Found from Sierra Leone and Guinea to Togo and south-western Benin * Fagan's paradise-flycatcher (''T. r. fagani'') - ( Bannerman, 1921): Originally described as a separate species. Found in Benin and south-western Nigeria * Ashy-tailed paradise-flycatcher (''T. r. tricolor'') - (

Fraser Fraser may refer to: Places Antarctica * Fraser Point, South Orkney Islands Australia * Fraser, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb in the Canberra district of Belconnen * Division of Fraser (Australian Capital Territory), a former federal e ...

, 1843): Originally described as a separate species. Found on

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(

Gulf of Guinea The Gulf of Guinea is the northeasternmost part of the tropical Atlantic Ocean from Cape Lopez in Gabon, north and west to Cape Palmas in Liberia. The intersection of the Equator and Prime Meridian (zero degrees latitude and longitude) is in ...

) * Cameroon ashy-tailed paradise-flycatcher (''T. r. neumanni'') - Stresemann, 1924: Found from south-eastern Nigeria to northern Angola * ''T. r. schubotzi'' - ( Reichenow, 1911): Originally described as a separate species. Found in south-eastern Cameroon and south-western Central African Republic * ''T. r. mayombe'' - ( Chapin, 1932): Found in Congo and western Democratic Republic of Congo * ''T. r. somereni'' - Chapin, 1948: Found in western and southern Uganda * Uganda black-headed paradise-flycatcher (''T. r. emini'') - Reichenow, 1893: Originally described as a separate species. Found in south-eastern Uganda, western Kenya and north-western Tanzania * Fiery paradise-flycatcher (''T. r. ignea'') - (Reichenow, 1901): Originally described as a separate species. Found in eastern Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, north-eastern Angola and north-western Zambia Until 2009, the Annobón paradise flycatcher was classified as a subspecies (''T. r. smithii'') of the Red-bellied paradise flycatcher.

Description

The adult male of this species is about 17 cm long, but the long tail streamers nearly double the birds length. It has a black head, and the rest of the plumage is chestnut, other than a prominent black wingbar. The female is duller and lacks the tail streamers. Young birds are plain brown. The males show considerable variation in plumage in some areas. There is a morph of this species in which the male has the chestnut parts of the plumage replaced by white, and some races have black tail streamers. The red-bellied paradise flycatcher is a noisy bird with a sharp ''zweet'' call. It has short legs and sits very upright whilst perched prominently, like a shrike. It is insectivorous, often hunting by flycatching. The black-bellied

, ''Terpsiphone viridis'', is closely related to this species, and hybrids occur with the underparts a mixture of black and red.

Distribution and habitat

The red-bellied paradise flycatcher is a common resident breeder in tropical western Africa south of the

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. This species is usually found in thick forests and other well-wooded habitats. Two

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

s are laid in a tiny cup nest in a tree.

References

* ''Birds of The Gambia'' by Barlow, Wacher and Disley, {{Taxonbar, from=Q165856 red-bellied paradise flycatcher Birds of the Gulf of Guinea Birds of Sub-Saharan Africa red-bellied paradise flycatcher