Quelea

Quelea /ˈkwiːliə/ is a genus of small passerine birds that belongs to the weaver family Ploceidae, confined to Africa. These are small-sized, sparrow- or finch-like gregarious birds, with bills adapted to eating seeds. Queleas may be nomadic over vast ranges; the red-billed quelea is said to be the most numerous bird species in the world.^[2]

Quelea
Red-billed quelea (Quelea quelea)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Ploceidae
Genus:	Quelea Reichenbach, 1850
Type species
Loxia sanguinirostris[1] Linnaeus, 1766
Species
Quelea cardinalis Quelea erythrops Quelea quelea

Taxonomy

There are three species:

A flock of red-billed queleas

Image	Scientific name	Common Name	Distribution
	Quelea cardinalis	Cardinal quelea	Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.
	Quelea erythrops	Red-headed quelea	Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, South Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
	Quelea quelea	Red-billed quelea	Subsaharan Africa, but absent from Madagascar, and avoiding rainforest, high altitude and South Africa's south coast

Phylogeny

Based on recent DNA-analysis, the red-billed quelea is sister to a clade that consist of both remaining species of the genus Quelea, namely Q. cardinalis and Q. erythrops. The genus belongs to the group of true weavers (subfamily Ploceinae), and is most related to Foudia, a genus of six or seven species that occur on the islands of the western Indian Ocean. This clade is sister to the Asian species of the genus Ploceus.

The following tree represents current insight of the relationships between the species of Quelea, and their closest relatives.^[3]

	genus Quelea Q. quelea Q. cardinalis Q. erythrops genus Foudia Asian species of the genus Ploceus

Impact on agriculture

Q. quelea is a major pest to small-grain cereal crops in much of sub-Saharan Africa; the kernels of corn are too big for it. Q. erythrops may cause substantial damage to rice. Q. cardinalis is not known to raid crops.^[4]