Erlanger's lark (''Calandrella blanfordi erlangeri'') is a small

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

lark Larks are passerine birds of the family Alaudidae. Larks have a cosmopolitan distribution with the largest number of species occurring in Africa. Only a single species, the horned lark, occurs in North America, and only Horsfield's bush lark oc ...

family

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 els ...

to the highlands of Ethiopia. The name of this bird commemorates the German ornithologist

Carlo von Erlanger Carlo von Erlanger (5 September 1872 – 4 September 1904) was a German ornithologist and explorer born in Ingelheim am Rhein. He was a cousin to musicologist Rodolphe d'Erlanger (1872-1932). ''(See: Erlanger family tree).'' He studied ornitholo ...

It is considered to be a subspecies of

Blanford's lark Blanford's lark or Blanford's short-toed lark (''Calandrella blanfordi'') is a small passerine bird of the lark family, Alaudidae, which is native to north-eastern Africa. Its common name commemorates the English zoologist William Thomas Blanford ...

. Alternate names include Erlanger's red-capped lark, Erlanger's short-toed lark and Ethiopian short-toed lark.

References

Updates to ''Birds of the World: A Checklist'' by James F. Clements. Fifth Edition. 2000.
{{alaudidae-stub Erlanger's lark Endemic birds of Ethiopia Erlanger's lark Taxa named by Oscar Neumann