Kafa white-eye

The Kafa white-eye (Zosterops kaffensis) is a small passerine bird in the white-eye family, Zosteropidae. It is found in west and southwest Ethiopia as well as on Mount Kulal in north Kenya. It was formerly considered to be a subspecies of Ethiopian white-eye.

Kafa white-eye
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Zosteropidae
Genus:	Zosterops
Species:	Z. kaffensis
Binomial name
Zosterops kaffensis Neumann, 1902

Taxonomy

The Kafa white-eye was formally described in 1902 by the German ornithologist Oscar Neumann from a specimen collected near Anderaccha in the Kaffa region of southwest Ethiopia. He placed the new species in the genus Zosterops and coined the current binomial name Zosterops kaffensis.^[2][3] The genus name combines the Ancient Greek zōstēros meaning "belt" or "girdle" with ōpos meaning "eye".^[4] The specific epithet kaffensis is from Kaffa Province, a former kingdom in south-western Ethiopia.^[5] The Kafa white-eye was formerly considered to be a subspecies of the Ethiopian white-eye. It was elevated to species status based on the divergence of the mitochondrial DNA sequence and differences in plumage.^[6][7][8]

Two subspecies are recognised:^[6]

• Z. k. kaffensis Neumann, 1902 – west, southwest Ethiopia
• Z. k. kulalensis Williams, JG, 1948 – Mount Kulal (north Kenya)