The southern yellow white-eye (''Zosterops anderssoni'') is a bird
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...
in the family
Zosteropidae
The white-eyes are a family, Zosteropidae, of small passerine birds native to tropical, subtropical and temperate Sub-Saharan Africa, southern and eastern Asia, and Australasia. White-eyes inhabit most tropical islands in the Indian Ocean, the ...
. It is found in parts of southern Africa. It was formerly considered
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 African yellow white-eye.
The southern yellow white-eye was formerly treated as a
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 ...
of the African yellow white-eye, (renamed the
northern yellow white-eye
The northern yellow white-eye (''Zosterops senegalensis''), formerly the African yellow white-eye, is a species of bird in the family Zosteropidae. It is found across sub-Saharan Africa, from Senegal in the west across to southern Sudan in the eas ...
), (''Zosterops senegalensis'') but it is now considered as a separate species based on the
phylogenetic
In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...
relationships determined in a molecular study in 2013.
Three subspecies are recognised:
[
* ''Z. a. anderssoni'' Shelley, 1892 – east and south Angola and north Namibia to southwest Tanzania, west Mozambique and north South Africa
* ''Z. a. tongensis'' Roberts, 1931 – southeast Zimbabwe, south Mozambique and northeast South Africa
* ''Z. a. stierlingi'' ]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 was ...
, 1899 – east and south Tanzania, east Zambia, Malawi and north Mozambique
References
Zosterops
Birds described in 1892
{{Zosteropidae-stub