The red-billed quelea (; ''Quelea quelea''), also known as the red-billed weaver or red-billed dioch, is a small—approximately long and weighing —migratory, sparrow-like
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 ...
of the weaver 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 ...
, native to
Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...
.
It was named by
Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...
in 1758, who considered it a
bunting, but
Ludwig Reichenbach
Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach (8 January 1793 – 17 March 1879) was a German botanist and ornithologist. It was he who first requested Leopold Blaschka to make a set of glass marine invertebrate models for scientific education and museu ...
assigned it in 1850 to the new genus ''Quelea''. Three
subspecies
In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...
are recognised, with ''Quelea quelea quelea'' occurring roughly from Senegal to Chad, ''Q. q. aethiopica'' from Sudan to Somalia and Tanzania, and ''Q. q. lathamii'' from Gabon to Mozambique and South Africa. Non-breeding birds have light underparts, striped brown upper parts, yellow-edged
flight feather
Flight feathers (''Pennae volatus'') are the long, stiff, asymmetrically shaped, but symmetrically paired pennaceous feathers on the wings or tail of a bird; those on the wings are called remiges (), singular remex (), while those on the tail ...
s and a reddish bill. Breeding females attain a yellowish bill. Breeding males have a black (or rarely white) facial mask, surrounded by a purplish, pinkish, rusty or yellowish wash on the head and breast. The species avoids forests, deserts and colder areas such as those at high altitude and in southern South Africa. It constructs oval roofed nests woven from strips of grass hanging from thorny branches, sugar cane or reeds. It breeds in very large colonies.
The quelea feeds primarily on seeds of annual grasses, but also causes extensive damage to cereal crops. Therefore, it is sometimes called "Africa's feathered
locust
Locusts (derived from the Vulgar Latin ''locusta'', meaning grasshopper) are various species of short-horned grasshoppers in the family Acrididae that have a swarming phase. These insects are usually solitary, but under certain circumstanc ...
".
[ The usual pest-control measures are spraying ]avicide An avicide is any substance (normally a chemical) used to kill birds.
Commonly used avicides include strychnine (also used as rodenticide and predacide), DRC-1339 (3-chloro-4-methylaniline hydrochloride, Starlicide) and CPTH (3-chloro-p-toluid ...
s or detonating fire-bombs in the enormous colonies during the night. Extensive control measures have been largely unsuccessful in limiting the quelea population. When food runs out, the species migrates to locations of recent rainfall and plentiful grass seed; hence it exploits its food source very efficiently. It is regarded as the most numerous undomesticated bird on earth, with the total post-breeding population sometimes peaking at an estimated 1.5 billion individuals. It feeds in huge flocks of millions of individuals, with birds that run out of food at the rear flying over the entire group to a fresh feeding zone at the front, creating an image of a rolling cloud. The conservation status
The conservation status of a group of organisms (for instance, a species) indicates whether the group still exists and how likely the group is to become extinct in the near future. Many factors are taken into account when assessing conservation ...
of red-billed quelea is least concern
A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...
according to the IUCN Red List
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...
.
Taxonomy and naming
The red-billed quelea was one of the many birds described originally by Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...
in the landmark 1758 10th edition of his ''Systema Naturae
' (originally in Latin written ' with the ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the system, now known as binomial nomen ...
''. Classifying it in the bunting genus ''Emberiza
The buntings are a group of Old World passerine birds forming the genus ''Emberiza'', the only genus in the family Emberizidae. The family contains 45 species. They are seed-eating birds with stubby, conical bills.
Taxonomy
The family Emberizid ...
'', he gave it the binomial name
In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...
of ''Emberiza quelea''. He incorrectly mentioned that it originated in India, probably because ships from the East Indies picked up birds when visiting the African coast during their return voyage to Europe. It is likely that he had seen a draft of ''Ornithologia, sive Synopsis methodica sistens avium divisionem in ordines, sectiones, genera, species, ipsarumque varietates'', a book written by Mathurin Jacques Brisson
Mathurin Jacques Brisson (; 30 April 1723 – 23 June 1806) was a French zoologist and natural philosopher.
Brisson was born at Fontenay-le-Comte. The earlier part of his life was spent in the pursuit of natural history; his published works ...
that was to be published in 1760, and which contained a black and white drawing of the species.
The erroneous type locality of India was corrected to Africa in the 12th edition of ''Systema Naturae
' (originally in Latin written ' with the ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the system, now known as binomial nomen ...
'' of 1766, and Brisson was cited
A citation is a reference to a source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose of ...
. Brisson mentions that the bird originates from Senegal, where it had been collected by Michel Adanson
Michel Adanson (7 April 17273 August 1806) was an 18th-century French botanist and naturalist who traveled to Senegal to study flora and fauna. He proposed a "natural system" of taxonomy distinct from the binomial system forwarded by Linnaeus.
...
during his 1748-1752 expedition. He called the bird ''Moineau à bec rouge du Senegal'' in French and ''Passer senegalensis erythrorynchos'' in Latin, both meaning "red-billed Senegalese sparrow".
Also in 1766, George Edwards illustrated the species in colour, based on a live male specimen owned by a Mrs Clayton in Surrey. He called it the "Brazilian sparrow", despite being unsure whether it came from Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
or Angola
, national_anthem = " Angola Avante"()
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capital = Luanda
, religion =
, religion_year = 2020
, religion_ref =
, coordina ...
. In 1850, Ludwig Reichenbach
Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach (8 January 1793 – 17 March 1879) was a German botanist and ornithologist. It was he who first requested Leopold Blaschka to make a set of glass marine invertebrate models for scientific education and museu ...
thought the species was not a true bunting, but rather a weaver, and created the genus name ''Quelea'', as well as the new combination
''Combinatio nova'', abbreviated ''comb. nov.'' (sometimes ''n. comb.''), is Latin for "new combination". It is used in taxonomic biology literature when a new name is introduced based on a pre-existing name. The term should not to be confused wi ...
''Q. quelea''. The white-faced morph
Morph may refer to:
Biology
* Morph (zoology), a visual or behavioral difference between organisms of distinct populations in a species
* Muller's morphs, a classification scheme for genetic mutations
* "-morph", a suffix commonly used in tax ...
was described as a separate species, ''Q. russii'' by Otto Finsch
Friedrich Hermann Otto Finsch (8 August 1839, Warmbrunn – 31 January 1917, Braunschweig) was a German ethnographer, natural history, naturalist and colonial explorer. He is known for a two-volume monograph on the parrots of the world which earned ...
in 1877 and named after the aviculturist Karl Russ
Karl Friedrich Otto Ruß (January 14, 1833, Baldenburg – September 29, 1899, Berlin) was a Prussian pharmacist, aviculturist, author of bird-keeping books, and the founding editor of the world's first bird-fancier magazine ''Die Gefiederte Welt ...
.[
Three subspecies are recognised. In the field, these are distinguished by differences in male breeding plumage.
* The ]nominate
Nomination is part of the process of selecting a candidate for either election to a public office, or the bestowing of an honor or award. A collection of nominees narrowed from the full list of candidates is a short list.
Political office
In the ...
subspecies, ''Quelea quelea quelea'', is native to west and central Africa, where it has been recorded from Mauritania, western and northern Senegal, Gambia, central Mali, Burkina Faso, southwestern and southern Niger, northern Nigeria, Cameroon, south-central Chad and northern Central African Republic.
* ''Loxia lathamii'' was described by Andrew Smith in 1836, but later assigned to ''Q. quelea'' as its subspecies ''lathamii''. It ranges across central and southern Africa, where it has been recorded from southwestern Gabon, southern Congo, Angola (except the northeast and arid coastal southwest), southern Democratic Republic of Congo and the mouth of the Congo River, Zambia, Malawi and western Mozambique across to Namibia (except the coastal desert) and central, southern and eastern South Africa.
* ''Ploceus aethiopicus'' was described by Carl Jakob Sundevall
Carl Jakob Sundevall (22 October 1801, Högestad – 2 February 1875) was a Swedish zoologist.
Sundevall studied at Lund University, where he became a Ph.D. in 1823. After traveling to East Asia, he studied medicine, graduating as Doctor of Med ...
in 1850, but later assigned to ''Q. quelea'' as its subspecies ''aethiopica''. It is found in eastern Africa where it occurs in southern Sudan, eastern South Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea south to the northeastern parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Kenya, central and eastern Tanzania and northwestern and southern Somalia.[
Formerly, two other subspecies have been described. ''Q. quelea spoliator'' was described by ]Phillip Clancey
Phillip Alexander Clancey (26 September 1917 – 18 July 2001) was a leading authority on the ornithology of South Africa.
Background and education
Phillip Clancey was born, brought up and educated in Glasgow, Scotland. He studied at the Gl ...
in 1960 on the basis of more greyish nonbreeding plumage of populations of wetter habitats of northeastern South Africa, Eswatini and southern Mozambique. However, further analysis indicated no clear distinction in plumage between it and ''Q. quelea lathamii'', with no evidence of genetic isolation. Hence it is not recognised as distinct. ''Q. quelea intermedia'', described by 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 1886 from east Africa, is regarded a synonym
A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...
of subspecies ''aethiopica''.
Etymology and vernacular names
Linnaeus himself did not explain the name ''quelea''. ''Quelea quelea'' is locally called ''kwelea domo-jekundu'' in Swahili, ''enzunge'' in Kwangali, ''chimokoto'' in Shona
Shona often refers to:
* Shona people, a Southern African people
* Shona language, a Bantu language spoken by Shona people today
Shona may also refer to:
* ''Shona'' (album), 1994 album by New Zealand singer Shona Laing
* Shona (given name)
* S ...
, ''inyonyane'' in Siswati
The Swazi or siSwati language is a Bantu language of the Nguni group spoken in Eswatini and South Africa by the Swati people. The number of speakers is estimated to be in the region of 2.4 million. The language is taught in Eswatini and s ...
, ''thaha'' in Sesotho
Sotho () or Sesotho () or Southern Sotho is a Southern Bantu language of the Sotho–Tswana ("S.30") group, spoken primarily by the Basotho in Lesotho, where it is the national and official language; South Africa (particularly the Free Sta ...
and ''ndzheyana'' in the Tsonga language
Tsonga () or Xitsonga ( ''Xitsonga'') as an endonym, is a Bantu language spoken by the Tsonga people of southern Africa. It is mutually intelligible with Tswa and Ronga and the name "Tsonga" is often used as a cover term for all three, als ...
. M.W. Jeffreys suggested that the term came from medieval Latin ''qualea'', meaning "quail", linking the prodigious numbers of queleas to the hordes of quail that fed the Israelites during the Exodus
The Exodus (Hebrew language, Hebrew: יציאת מצרים, ''Yeẓi’at Miẓrayim'': ) is the founding myth of the Israelites whose narrative is spread over four books of the Torah (or Pentateuch, corresponding to the first five books of the ...
from Egypt.
The subspecies ''lathamii'' is probably named in honor of the ornithologist John Latham.
The name of the subspecies ''aethiopica'' refers to Ethiopia, and its type was collected in the neighbouring Sennar province in today's Sudan.
"Red-billed quelea" 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). Other names in English include black-faced dioch, cardinal, common dioch, Latham's weaver-bird, pink-billed weaver, quelea finch, quelea weaver, red-billed dioch, red-billed weaver, Russ' weaver, South-African dioch, Sudan dioch and Uganda dioch.
Phylogeny
Based on recent DNA analysis
Genetic testing, also known as DNA testing, is used to identify changes in DNA sequence or chromosome structure. Genetic testing can also include measuring the results of genetic changes, such as RNA analysis as an output of gene expression, or ...
, the red-billed quelea is the sister group
In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree.
Definition
The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram:
Taxon A and t ...
of a clade that contains both other remaining species of the genus ''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 ...
'', namely the cardinal quelea
The cardinal quelea (''Quelea cardinalis'') is a species of bird in the family Ploceidae.
It is found in Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.
Description
The c ...
(''Q. cardinalis'') and the red-headed quelea
The red-headed quelea (''Quelea erythrops'') is a species of bird in the family Ploceidae.
It is found in Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of t ...
(''Q. erythrops''). The genus belongs to the group of true weavers (subfamily Ploceinae), and is most closely related to the fodies ('' Foudia''), a genus of six or seven species that occur on the islands of the western Indian Ocean. These two genera are in turn the sister clade to the Asian species of the genus ''Ploceus
''Ploceus'' is a genus of birds in the weaver family, Ploceidae. They are native to the Indomalayan and Afrotropical realms.
Taxonomy and systematics Phylogeny
The genus ''Ploceus'' was introduced by the French naturalist Georges Cuvier ...
''. The following tree represents current insight of the relationships between the species of ''Quelea'', and their closest relatives.
Interbreeding
In biology, a hybrid is the offspring resulting from combining the qualities of two organisms of different breeds, varieties, species or genera through sexual reproduction. Hybrids are not always intermediates between their parents (such as in ...
between red-billed and red-headed queleas has been observed in captivity.
Description
The red-billed quelea is a small sparrow-like bird, approximately long and weighing , with a heavy, cone-shaped bill, which is red (in females outside the breeding season and males) or orange to yellow (females during the breeding season).
Over 75% of males have a black facial "mask", comprising a black forehead, cheeks, lores and higher parts of the throat. Occasionally males have a white mask. The mask is surrounded by a variable band of yellow, rusty, pink or purple. White masks are sometimes bordered by black. This colouring may only reach the lower throat or extend along the belly, with the rest of the underparts light brown or whitish with some dark stripes. The upperparts have light and dark brown longitudinal stripes, particularly at midlength, and are paler on the rump. The tail and upper wing are dark brown. The flight feather
Flight feathers (''Pennae volatus'') are the long, stiff, asymmetrically shaped, but symmetrically paired pennaceous feathers on the wings or tail of a bird; those on the wings are called remiges (), singular remex (), while those on the tail ...
s are edged greenish or yellow. The eye has a narrow naked red ring and a brown iris
Iris most often refers to:
*Iris (anatomy), part of the eye
*Iris (mythology), a Greek goddess
* ''Iris'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants
* Iris (color), an ambiguous color term
Iris or IRIS may also refer to:
Arts and media
Fictional ent ...
. The legs are orangey in colour. The bill is bright raspberry red. Outside the breeding season, the male lacks bright colours; it has a grey-brown head with dark streaks, whitish chin and throat, and a faint light stripe above the eyes. At this time, the bill becomes pink or dull red and the legs turn flesh-coloured.
The females resemble the males in non-breeding plumage, but have a yellow or orangey bill and eye-ring during the breeding season. At other times, the female bill is pink or dull red.
Newborns have white bills and are almost naked with some wisps of down on the top of the head and the shoulders. The eyes open during the fourth day, at the same time as the first feathers appear. Older nestlings have a horn-coloured bill with a hint of lavender, though it turns orange-purple before the post-juvenile moult. Young birds change feathers two to three months after hatching, after which the plumage resembles that of non-breeding adults, although the head is grey, the cheeks whitish, and wing coverts
A covert feather or tectrix on a bird is one of a set of feathers, called coverts (or ''tectrices''), which, as the name implies, cover other feathers. The coverts help to smooth airflow over the wings and tail. Ear coverts
The ear coverts are sm ...
and flight feathers have buff margins. At an age of about five months they moult
In biology, moulting (British English), or molting (American English), also known as sloughing, shedding, or in many invertebrates, ecdysis, is the manner in which an animal routinely casts off a part of its body (often, but not always, an outer ...
again and their plumage starts to look like that of breeding adults, with a pinkish-purple bill.
Different subspecies are distinguished by different colour patterns of the male breeding plumage. In the typical subspecies, ''Q. quelea quelea'', breeding males have a buff crown, nape and underparts and the black mask extends high up the forehead. In '' Q. quelea lathamii'' the mask also extends high up the forehead, but the underparts are mainly white. In ''Q. quelea aethiopica'' the mask does not extend far above the bill, and the underparts may have a pink wash. There is much variability within subspecies, and some birds cannot be ascribed to a subspecies based on outward appearance alone. Because of interbreeding, specimens intermediate between subspecies may occur where the ranges of the subspecies overlap, such as at Lake Chad.[
The female ]pin-tailed whydah
The pin-tailed whydah (''Vidua macroura'') is a small songbird with a conspicuous pennant-like tail in breeding males. It is a resident breeding bird in most of Africa south of the Sahara Desert.
Taxonomy
The pin-tailed whydah was first describe ...
could be mistaken for the red-billed quelea in non-breeding plumage, since both are sparrow-like birds with conical red-coloured bills, but the whydah has a whitish brow between a black stripe through the eye and a black stripe above.
Sound
Flying flocks make a distinct sound due to the many wing beats. After arriving at the roost or nest site, birds keep moving around and make a lot of noise for about half an hour before settling in. Both males and females call. The male sings in short bursts, starting with some chatter, followed by a warbling ''tweedle-toodle-tweedle''.
Distribution and habitat
The red-billed quelea is mostly found in tropical and subtropical areas with a seasonal semi-arid climate
A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of semi-ar ...
, resulting in dry thornbush grassland, including the Sahel
The Sahel (; ar, ساحل ' , "coast, shore") is a region in North Africa. It is defined as the ecoclimatic and biogeographic realm of transition between the Sahara to the north and the Sudanian savanna to the south. Having a hot semi-arid c ...
, and its distribution covers most of sub-Saharan Africa. It avoids forests, however, including miombo woodland
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 ...
s and rainforest
Rainforests are characterized by a closed and continuous tree canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforest can be classified as tropical rainforest or temperate rainfores ...
s such as those in central Africa, and is generally absent from western parts of South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
and arid coastal regions of Namibia and Angola. It was introduced to the island of Réunion
Réunion (; french: La Réunion, ; previously ''Île Bourbon''; rcf, label= Reunionese Creole, La Rényon) is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas department and region of France. It is located approximately east of the island ...
in 2000. Occasionally, it can be found as high as above sea-level, but mostly resides below . It visits agricultural areas, where it feeds on cereal crops, although it is thought to prefer seeds of wild annual grasses. It needs to drink daily and can only be found within about distance of the nearest body of water. It is found in wet habitats, congregating at the shores of waterbodies, such as Lake Ngami
Lake Ngami is an endorheic lake in Botswana north of the Kalahari Desert. It is seasonally filled by the Taughe River, an effluent of the Okavango River system flowing out of the western side of the Okavango Delta. It is one of the fragmented remn ...
, during flooding. It needs shrubs, reeds or trees to nest and roost
Roost may refer to:
Animal resting
* Roosting, resting behavior of birds
* Communal roosting, a behavior of some birds and other animals
* Monarch butterfly roosts, communal resting sites in monarch butterfly migration
* Bat roost, a list of pla ...
.
Red-billed queleas migrate seasonally over long distances in anticipation of the availability of their main natural food source, seeds of annual grasses. The presence of these grass seeds is the result of the beginning of rains weeks earlier, and the rainfall varies in a seasonal geographic pattern. The temporarily wet areas do not form a single zone that periodically moves back and forth across the entirety of Sub-Saharan Africa, but rather consist of five or six regions, within which the wet areas "move" or "jump". Red-billed quelea populations thus migrate between the temporarily wet areas within each of these five to six geographical regions. Each of the subspecies, as distinguished by different male breeding plumage, is confined to one or more of these geographical regions.
In Nigeria, the nominate subspecies generally travels southwards during the start of the rains in the north during June and July, when the grass seed germinates, and is no longer eaten by the queleas. When they reach the Benoue River valley, for instance, the rainy season has already passed and the grass has produced new seeds. After about six weeks, the birds migrate northwards to find a suitable breeding area, nurture a generation, and then repeat this sequence moving further north. Some populations may also move northwards when the rains have started, to eat the remaining ungerminated seeds. In Senegal migration is probably between the southeast and the northwest.
In eastern Africa, the subspecies ''aethiopica'' is thought to consist of two sub-populations. One moves from Central Tanzania to southern Somalia, to return to breed in Tanzania in February and March, followed by successive migrations to breed ever further north, the season's last usually occurring in central Kenya during May. The second group moves from northern and central Sudan and central Ethiopia in May and June, to breed in southern Sudan, South Sudan, southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya, moving back north from August to October.
In southern Africa, the total population of the subspecies ''Q. quelea lathamii'' in October converges on the Zimbabwean Highveld. In November, part of the population migrates to the northwest to northwestern Angola, while the remainder migrates to the southeast to southern Mozambique and eastern South-Africa, but no proof has been found that these migration cohorts are genetically or morphologically divergent.
Ecology and behaviour
The red-billed quelea is regarded as the most numerous undomesticated bird on earth, with the total post-breeding population sometimes peaking at an estimated 1.5 billion individuals. The species is specialised on feeding on seeds of annual grass species, which may be ripe, or still green, but have not germinated yet. Since the availability of these seeds varies with time and space, occurring in particular weeks after the local off-set of rains, queleas migrate as a strategy
Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία ''stratēgia'', "art of troop leader; office of general, command, generalship") is a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the "art ...
to ensure year-round food availability. The consumption of a lot of food with a high energy content is needed for the queleas to gain enough fat to allow migration to new feeding areas.
When breeding, it selects areas such as lowveld
Veld ( or ), also spelled veldt, is a type of wide open rural landscape in :Southern Africa. Particularly, it is a flat area covered in grass or low scrub, especially in the countries of South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe and Botswa ...
with thorny or spiny vegetation—typically ''Acacia'' species—below elevation. While foraging for food, they may fly each day and return to the roosting or nesting site in the evening. Small groups of red-billed queleas often mix with different weaver birds (''Ploceus
''Ploceus'' is a genus of birds in the weaver family, Ploceidae. They are native to the Indomalayan and Afrotropical realms.
Taxonomy and systematics Phylogeny
The genus ''Ploceus'' was introduced by the French naturalist Georges Cuvier ...
'') and bishops (''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 ...
''), and in western Africa they may join the Sudan golden sparrow (''Passer luteus'') and various estrildids. Red-billed queleas may also roost together with weavers, estrildids and barn swallows. Their life expectancy is two to three years in the wild, but one captive bird lived for eighteen years.
Breeding
Two males of subsp. ''lathamii'' at their nest site
The red-billed quelea needs of precipitation to breed, with nest building usually commencing four to nine weeks after the onset of the rains. Nests are usually built in stands of thorny trees such as umbrella thorn acacia (''Vachellia tortilis
''Vachellia tortilis'', widely known as ''Acacia tortilis'' but now attributed to the genus ''Vachellia'', is the umbrella thorn acacia, also known as ''umbrella thorn'' and Israeli babool, a medium to large canopied tree native to most of Afri ...
''), blackthorn (''Senegalia mellifera
''Senegalia mellifera'' is a common thorn tree in Africa. The name ''mellifera'' refers to its sweet-smelling blossoms and honey. Its lumber turns pitch black when oiled. Common names of the tree include Blackthorn and Swarthaak (Afrikaans). I ...
'') and sicklebush (''Dichrostachys cinerea
''Dichrostachys cinerea'', known as sicklebush, Bell mimosa, Chinese lantern tree or Kalahari Christmas tree (South Africa), is a legume of the genus ''Dichrostachys'' in the family Fabaceae.
Other common names include omubambanjobe (Tooro Ugan ...
''), but sometimes in sugar cane
Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fibrous stalks t ...
fields or reeds. Colonies can consist of millions of nests, in densities of 30,000 per ha (12,000 per acre). Over 6000 nests in a single tree have been counted.
At Malilangwe in Zimbabwe one colony was long and wide. In southern Africa, suitable branches are stripped of leaves a few days in advance of the offset of nest construction. The male starts the nest by creating a ring of grass by twining strips around both branches of a hanging forked twig, and from there bridging the gaps in the circle his beak can reach, having one foot on each of the branchlets, using the same footholds and the same orientation throughout the building process. Two parallel stems of reeds or sugar cane can also be used to attach the nest from. They use both their bills and feet in adding the initial knots needed.
As soon as the ring is finished the male displays, trying to attract a female, after which the nest may be completed in two days. The nest chamber is created in front of the ring. The entrance may be constructed after the egg laying has started, while the male works from the outside. A finished nest looks like a small oval or globular ball of grass, around 18 cm (7 in) high and 16 cm (6 in) wide, with a 2.5 cm (1 in) wide entrance high up one side, sheltered by a shallow awning. About six to seven hundred fresh, green grass strips are used for each nest. This species may nest several times per year when conditions are favourable.
In the breeding season, males are diversely coloured. These differences in plumage
Plumage ( "feather") is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, ...
do not signal condition, probably serving instead for the recognition of individual birds. However, the intensity of the red on the bills is regarded an indicator of the animal's quality and social dominance. Red-billed quelea males mate with one female only within one breeding cycle. There are usually three eggs in each clutch (though the full range is one to five) of approximately long and in diameter. The eggs are light bluish or greenish in colour, sometimes with some dark spots. Some clutches contain six eggs, but large clutches may be the result of other females dumping an egg in a stranger's nest.
Both sexes share the incubation of the eggs during the day, but the female alone does so during the cool night, and feeds during the day when air temperatures are high enough to sustain the development of the embryo. The breeding cycle of the red-billed quelea is one of the shortest known in any bird. Incubation takes nine or ten days. After the chicks hatch, they are fed for some days with protein
Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, respo ...
-rich insects. Later the nestlings mainly get seeds. The young birds fledge after about two weeks in the nest. They are sexually mature in one year.
Feeding
Flocks of red-billed queleas usually feed on the ground, with birds in the rear constantly leap-frogging those in the front to exploit the next strip of fallen seeds. This behaviour creates the impression of a rolling cloud, and enables efficient exploitation of the available food. The birds also take seeds from the grass ears directly. They prefer grains of in size. Red-billed queleas feed mainly on grass seeds, which includes a large number of annual species from the genera ''Echinochloa
''Echinochloa'' is a very widespread genus of plants in the grass family and tribe Paniceae. Some of the species are known by the common names barnyard grass or cockspur grass.
Some of the species within this genus are millets that are grown a ...
'', ''Panicum
''Panicum'' (panicgrass) is a large genus of about 450 species of grasses native throughout the tropical regions of the world, with a few species extending into the northern temperate zone. They are often large, annual or perennial grasses, growi ...
'', ''Setaria
''Setaria'' is a widespread genus of plants in the grass family. The name is derived from the Latin word ''seta'', meaning "bristle" or "hair", which refers to the bristly spikelets.
The genus includes over 100 species distributed in many tr ...
'', ''Sorghum
''Sorghum'' () is a genus of about 25 species of flowering plants in the grass family (Poaceae). Some of these species are grown as cereals for human consumption and some in pastures for animals. One species is grown for grain, while many othe ...
'', '' Tetrapogon'' and ''Urochloa
''Urochloa'' is a genus of plants in the grass family, native to Eurasia, Africa, Australia, Mexico, and the Pacific Islands. ''.
One survey at Lake Chad
Lake Chad (french: Lac Tchad) is a historically large, shallow, endorheic lake in Central Africa, which has varied in size over the centuries. According to the ''Global Resource Information Database'' of the United Nations Environment Programme, ...
showed that two-thirds of the seeds eaten belonged to only three species: African wild rice (''Oryza barthii
''Oryza barthii'', also called Barth's rice, wild rice, or African wild rice, is a grass in the rice genus ''Oryza''. It is an annual, erect to semierect grass. It has leaves with a short ligule (<), and panicles that are compact to open, rarely ...
''), '' Sorghum purpureosericeum'' and jungle rice (''Echinochloa colona
''Echinochloa colona'', commonly known as jungle rice, deccan grass, or awnless barnyard grass, is a type of wild grass originating from tropical Asia. It was formerly classified as a species of ''Panicum''. It is the wild ancestor of the culti ...
''). When the supply of these seeds runs out, seeds of cereal
A cereal is any Poaceae, grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain (botanically, a type of fruit called a caryopsis), composed of the endosperm, Cereal germ, germ, and bran. Cereal Grain, grain crops are grown in greater quantit ...
s such as barley
Barley (''Hordeum vulgare''), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia as early as 10,000 years ago. Globally 70% of barley pr ...
(''Hordeum disticum''), teff
''Eragrostis tef'', also known as teff, Williams lovegrass or annual bunch grass, is an annual grass, a species of lovegrass native to the Horn of Africa, notably to both Eritrea and Ethiopia. It is cultivated for its edible seeds, also known as ...
(''Eragrostis tef''), sorghum
''Sorghum'' () is a genus of about 25 species of flowering plants in the grass family (Poaceae). Some of these species are grown as cereals for human consumption and some in pastures for animals. One species is grown for grain, while many othe ...
(''Sorghum bicolor''), manna
Manna ( he, מָן, mān, ; ar, اَلْمَنُّ; sometimes or archaically spelled mana) is, according to the Bible, an edible substance which God provided for the Israelites during their travels in the desert during the 40-year period follow ...
(''Setaria italica''), millet
Millets () are a highly varied group of small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Most species generally referred to as millets belong to the tribe Paniceae, but some millets al ...
(''Panicum miliaceum''), rice
Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima
''Oryza glaberrima'', commonly known as African rice, is one of the two domesticated rice species. It was first domesticated and grown i ...
(''Oryza sativa''), wheat
Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
(''Triticum''), oat
The oat (''Avena sativa''), sometimes called the common oat, is a species of cereal grain grown for its seed, which is known by the same name (usually in the plural, unlike other cereals and pseudocereals). While oats are suitable for human con ...
s (''Avena aestiva''), as well as buckwheat
Buckwheat (''Fagopyrum esculentum''), or common buckwheat, is a flowering plant in the knotweed family Polygonaceae cultivated for its grain-like seeds and as a cover crop. The name "buckwheat" is used for several other species, such as '' Fago ...
(''Phagopyrum esculentum'') and sunflower
The common sunflower (''Helianthus annuus'') is a large annual forb of the genus ''Helianthus'' grown as a crop for its edible oily seeds. Apart from cooking oil production, it is also used as livestock forage (as a meal or a silage plant), as ...
(''Helianthus annuus'') are eaten on a large scale. Red-billed queleas have also been observed feeding on crushed corn from cattle feedlot
A feedlot or feed yard is a type of animal feeding operation (AFO) which is used in intensive animal farming, notably beef cattle, but also swine, horses, sheep, turkeys, chickens or ducks, prior to slaughter. Large beef feedlots are called conc ...
s, but entire maize kernels are too big for them to swallow. A single bird may eat about in seeds each day. As much as half of the diet of nestlings consists of insects, such as grasshoppers, ants, beetles, bugs, caterpillars, flies and termites, as well as snails and spiders.
Insects are generally eaten during the breeding season, though winged termites are eaten at other times. Breeding females consume snail-shell fragments and calcareous grit, presumably to enable egg-shell formation. One colony in Namibia, of an estimated five million adults and five million chicks, was calculated to consume roughly of insects and of grass seeds during its breeding cycle. At sunrise they form flocks that co-operate to find food. After a successful search, they settle to feed. In the heat of the day, they rest in the shade, preferably near water, and preen. Birds seem to prefer drinking at least twice a day. In the evening, they once again fly off in search of food.
Predators and parasites
Natural enemies of the red-billed quelea include other birds, snakes, warthogs, squirrels, galago
Galagos , also known as bush babies, or ''nagapies'' (meaning "night monkeys" in Afrikaans), are small nocturnal primates native to continental, sub-Sahara Africa, and make up the family Galagidae (also sometimes called Galagonidae). They ar ...
s, monkeys, mongoose
A mongoose is a small terrestrial carnivorous mammal belonging to the family Herpestidae. This family is currently split into two subfamilies, the Herpestinae and the Mungotinae. The Herpestinae comprises 23 living species that are native to so ...
s, genets, civet
A civet () is a small, lean, mostly nocturnal mammal native to tropical Asia and Africa, especially the tropical forests. The term civet applies to over a dozen different species, mostly from the family Viverridae. Most of the species diversity ...
s, foxes, jackals, hyaenas, cats, lions and leopards. Bird species that prey on queleas include the lanner falcon
The lanner falcon (''Falco biarmicus'') is a medium-sized bird of prey that breeds in Africa, southeast Europe and just into Asia. It prefers open habitat and is mainly resident, but some birds disperse more widely after the breeding season. A l ...
, tawny eagle
The tawny eagle (''Aquila rapax'') is a large bird of prey. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family ''Accipitridae''. Its heavily feathered legs mark it as a member of the subfamily Aquilinae, also known as booted eagles.Helbig, A. J., Kocum, ...
and marabou stork
The marabou stork (''Leptoptilos crumenifer'') is a large wading bird in the stork family Ciconiidae native to sub-Saharan Africa. It breeds in both wet and arid habitats, often near human habitation, especially landfill sites. It is someti ...
. The diederik cuckoo
The diederik cuckoo (''Chrysococcyx caprius''), formerly dideric cuckoo or didric cuckoo is a member of the cuckoo order of birds, the Cuculiformes, which also includes the roadrunners and the anis.
Taxonomy
The diederik cuckoo was described ...
is a brood parasite
Brood parasites are animals that rely on others to raise their young. The strategy appears among birds, insects and fish. The brood parasite manipulates a host, either of the same or of another species, to raise its young as if it were its own ...
that probably lays eggs in nests of queleas. Some predators, such as snakes, raid nests and eat eggs and chicks.
Nile crocodile
The Nile crocodile (''Crocodylus niloticus'') is a large crocodilian native to freshwater habitats in Africa, where it is present in 26 countries. It is widely distributed throughout sub-Saharan Africa, occurring mostly in the central, eastern ...
s sometimes attack drinking queleas, and an individual in Ethiopia hit birds out of the vegetation on the bank into the water with its tail, subsequently eating them. Queleas drinking at a waterhole were grabbed from below by African helmeted turtle
The African helmeted turtle (''Pelomedusa subrufa''), also known commonly as the marsh terrapin, the crocodile turtle, or in the pet trade as the African side-necked turtle, is a species of omnivorous side-necked terrapin in the family Pelomedus ...
s in Etosha
Etosha National Park is a national park in northwestern Namibia and one of the largest national parks in Africa. It was proclaimed a game reserve in March 1907 in Ordinance 88 by the Governor of German South West Africa, Friedrich von Lindequist. ...
. Among the invertebrates that kill and eat youngsters are the armoured bush cricket (''Acanthoplus discoidalis'') and the scorpion '' Cheloctonus jonesii''. Internal parasites found in queleas include ''Haemoproteus
''Haemoproteus'' is a genus of alveolates that are parasitic in birds, reptiles and amphibians. Its name is derived from Greek: ''Haima'', "blood", and ''Proteus'', a sea god who had the power of assuming different shapes. The name ''Haemoproteu ...
'' and ''Plasmodium
''Plasmodium'' is a genus of unicellular eukaryotes that are obligate parasites of vertebrates and insects. The life cycles of ''Plasmodium'' species involve development in a blood-feeding insect host which then injects parasites into a vert ...
''.
Interactions with humans
The red-billed quelea is caught and eaten in many parts of Africa. Around Lake Chad
Lake Chad (french: Lac Tchad) is a historically large, shallow, endorheic lake in Central Africa, which has varied in size over the centuries. According to the ''Global Resource Information Database'' of the United Nations Environment Programme, ...
, three traditional methods are used to catch red-billed queleas. Trappers belonging to the Hadjerai The Hadjarai are a group of peoples comprising 6.7% of the population of Chad, or more than 150,000 people. The name is an Arabic exonym, literally meaning "hoseof the stones" (i.e. of the mountains). It is used collectively to describe several dist ...
tribe use triangular hand-held nets, which are both selective and efficient. Each team of six trappers caught about twenty thousand birds each night. An estimated five to ten million queleas are trapped near N'Djamena
N'Djamena ( ) is the capital and largest city of Chad. It is also a special statute region, divided into 10 districts or ''arrondissements''.
The city serves as the centre of economic activity in Chad. Meat, fish and cotton processing are the ...
each year, representing a market value of approximately US$37,500–75,000. Between 13 June and 21 August 1994 alone, 1.2 million queleas were caught. Birds were taken from roosts in the trees during the moonless period each night. The feathers were plucked and the carcasses fried the following morning, dried in the sun, and transported to the city to be sold on the market.
The Sara people
The Sara people are a Central Sudanic ethnic group native to southern Chad, the northwestern areas of the Central African Republic, and the southern border of North Sudan. They speak the Sara languages which are a part of the Central Sudanic lang ...
use standing fishing nets with a very fine mesh, while Masa
''Masa'' (or ''masa de maíz'') (; ) is a maize dough that comes from ground nixtamalization, nixtamalized corn. It is used for making corn tortillas, ''gorditas'', ''tamales'', ''pupusas'', and many other Latin American cuisine, Latin American d ...
and Musgum fishermen cast nets over groups of birds. The impact of hunting on the quelea population (about 200 million individuals in the Lake Chad Basin) is deemed insignificant. Woven traps made from star grass ('' Cynodon nlemfuensis'') are used to catch hundreds of these birds daily in the Kondoa District
Kondoa District is one of the seven districts of the Dodoma Region of Tanzania. It is bordered to the north by Manyara Region, and to the south by Chemba District. Its district capital is the town of Kondoa.
According to the 2012 Tanzania Natio ...
, Tanzania.
Guano
Guano (Spanish from qu, wanu) is the accumulated excrement of seabirds or bats. As a manure, guano is a highly effective fertilizer due to the high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, all key nutrients essential for plant growth. G ...
is collected from under large roosts in Nigeria and used as a fertiliser.[ Tourists like to watch the large flocks of queleas, such as during visits of the ]Kruger National Park
Kruger National Park is a South African National Park and one of the largest game reserves in Africa. It covers an area of in the provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga in northeastern South Africa, and extends from north to south and from ea ...
. The birds themselves eat pest insects such as migratory locust
The migratory locust (''Locusta migratoria'') is the most widespread locust species, and the only species in the genus ''Locusta''. It occurs throughout Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. It used to be common in Europe but has now become ...
s, and the moth species ''Helicoverpa armigera
''Helicoverpa armigera'' is a species of Lepidoptera in the family Noctuidae. It is known as the cotton bollworm, corn earworm, Old World (African) bollworm, or scarce bordered straw (the lattermost in the UK, where it is a migrant). The larvae f ...
'' and ''Spodoptera exempta
The African armyworm (''Spodoptera exempta''), also called ''okalombo'', ''kommandowurm'', or nutgrass armyworm, is a species of moth of the family Noctuidae. The larvae often exhibit marching behavior when traveling to feeding sites, leading t ...
''. The animal's large distribution and population resulted in a conservation status
The conservation status of a group of organisms (for instance, a species) indicates whether the group still exists and how likely the group is to become extinct in the near future. Many factors are taken into account when assessing conservation ...
listed as least concern
A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...
on the IUCN Red List
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...
.
Aviculture
The red-billed quelea is sometimes kept and bred in captivity by hobbyists. It thrives if kept in large and high cages, with space to fly to minimise the risk of obesity. A sociable bird, the red-billed quelea tolerates mixed-species aviaries. Keeping many individuals mimics its natural occurrence in large flocks. This species withstands frosts, but requires shelter from rain and wind. Affixing hanging branches, such as hawthorn, in the cage facilitates nesting. Adults are typically given a diet of tropical seeds enriched with grass seeds, augmented by living insects such as mealworm
Mealworms are the larval form of the yellow mealworm beetle, ''Tenebrio molitor'', a species of darkling beetle. Like all holometabolic insects, they go through four life stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. Larvae typically measure about or ...
s, spiders, or boiled shredded egg during the breeding season. Fine stone grit and calcium sources, such as shell grit and cuttlebone
Cuttlebone, also known as cuttlefish bone, is a hard, brittle internal structure (an internal shell) found in all members of the family Sepiidae, commonly known as cuttlefish, within the cephalopods. In other cephalopod families it is calle ...
, provide nutrients as well. If provided with material like fresh grass or coconut fibre they can be bred.
Pest management
Sometimes called "Africa's feathered locust", the red-billed quelea is considered a serious agricultural pest in Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...
.
The governments of Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe have regularly made attempts to lessen quelea populations. The most common method to kill members of problematic flocks was by spraying the organophosphate
In organic chemistry, organophosphates (also known as phosphate esters, or OPEs) are a class of organophosphorus compounds with the general structure , a central phosphate molecule with alkyl or aromatic substituents. They can be considered a ...
avicide An avicide is any substance (normally a chemical) used to kill birds.
Commonly used avicides include strychnine (also used as rodenticide and predacide), DRC-1339 (3-chloro-4-methylaniline hydrochloride, Starlicide) and CPTH (3-chloro-p-toluid ...
fenthion from the air on breeding colonies and roosts. In Botswana and Zimbabwe, spraying was also executed from ground vehicles and manually. Kenya and South Africa regularly used fire-bombs. Attempts during the 1950s and '60s to eradicate populations, at least regionally, failed. Consequently, management is at present directed at removing those congregations that are likely to attack vulnerable fields. In eastern and southern Africa, the control of quelea is often coordinated by the Desert Locust Control Organization for Eastern Africa (DLCO-EA) and the International Red Locust Control Organization for Central and Southern Africa (IRLCO-CSA), which make their aircraft available for this purpose.
Quelea control by DLCO
Gallery
File:Red-billed quelea Edwards, 1760.png, left, Etching by George Edwards published in 1760
Red-billed quelea (Quelea quelea aethiopica) male breeding plumage pink.jpg, male ''Q. q. aethiopica'' in breeding plumage with pink wash, Uganda
Red-billed quelea (Quelea quelea aethiopica) male breeding plumage yellow.jpg, male ''Q. q. aethiopica'' in breeding plumage with a yellow wash on the head, Uganda
Travailleur à bec rouge femelles.jpg, Females in breeding plumage with yellow bills, South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
Red-billed quelea (Quelea quelea aethiopica) female.jpg, female ''Q. q. aethiopica'' in non-breeding plumage, Ethiopia
References
External links
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{{taxonbar, from=Q367327
Agricultural pests
Birds described in 1758, red-billed quelea
Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus, red-billed quelea
Birds of Sub-Saharan Africa
Quelea, red-billed quelea