Sentinel rock thrush

The sentinel rock thrush (Monticola explorator) is a species of passerine bird in the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae that is found in Lesotho, South Africa, and Eswatini. Its natural habitat is rocky outcrops in high-altitude grassland.^[2]

Sentinel rock thrush
Male and female in Table Mountain National Park, Cape Town, South Africa
Conservation status
Near Threatened  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Muscicapidae
Genus:	Monticola
Species:	M. explorator
Binomial name
Monticola explorator (Vieillot, 1818)

It is insectivorous.^[3]

Taxonomy

The sentinel rock thrush was formally described in 1818 by the French ornithologist Louis Vieillot under the binomial name Turdus explorator.^[4][5] The specific epithet explorator is Latin meaning "scout", "explorer" or "searcher".^[6] Vieillot based his account on "L'Espionneur" from the mountains of the Cape of Good Hope that had been described and illustrated in 1802 by the French naturalist François Levaillant in his book Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux d'Afrique.^[7] The sentinel rock thrush is now one of 15 species placed in the genus Monticola that was introduced in 1822 by the German naturalist Friedrich Boie.^[8]