The western black-headed batis (''Batis erlangeri'') or Von Erlanger's batis, is a species of

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 t ...

bird in the wattle-eye family

Platysteiridae Platysteiridae is a family of small, stout passerine birds of the African tropics. The family contains the wattle-eyes, batises and shrike-flycatchers. They were previously classed as a subfamily of the Old World flycatchers, Muscicapidae. These ...

.Louette, M. (2019)
"Western Black-headed Batis (''Batis erlangeri'')"
In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D. A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). ''Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive''. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. Retrieved 26 November 2019. It is found over an extensive area of central 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 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 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 was formerly treated 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

eastern black-headed batis The eastern black-headed batis (''Batis minor'') is a passerine bird in the family Platysteiridae from eastern Africa. It was formerly treated as conspecific with the western black-headed batis. Taxonomy The eastern black-headed batis was desc ...

(''Batis minor''). Two

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: * ''B. e. erlangeri'' Neumann, 1907 – north Cameroon to Ethiopia south to Uganda, west Kenya and Burundi * ''B. e. congoensis'' Neumann, 1907 – south Congo, southwest Democratic Republic of the Congo, west Angola

References

western black-headed batis The western black-headed batis (''Batis erlangeri'') or Von Erlanger's batis, is a species of passerine bird in the wattle-eye family Platysteiridae.Louette, M. (2019)"Western Black-headed Batis (''Batis erlangeri'')" In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A ...

Birds of Sub-Saharan Africa

Taxa named by Oscar Neumann {{Platysteiridae-stub