Yellow-mantled widowbird

The yellow-mantled widowbird (Euplectes macroura), also known as the yellow-backed widow, is a species of bird in the family Ploceidae.

Yellow-mantled widowbird
Nominate race in the Central African Republic
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Ploceidae
Genus:	Euplectes
Species:	E. macroura
Binomial name
Euplectes macroura (Gmelin, JF, 1789)

Taxonomy

The yellow-mantled widowbird was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the crossbills in the genus Loxia and coined the binomial name Loxia macroura. Gmelin specified the locality as "Whydah"; this is Ouidah on the coast of Benin is East Africa.^[2] The specific epithet is from Ancient Greek makros meaning "long" and -ouros meaning "tailed".^[3] The yellow-mantled widowbird is now one of 18 species placed in the genus Euplectes that was introduced in 1829 by the English naturalist William Swainson.^[4]

• E. m. macrocercus (Lichtenstein, MHC, 1823) – Ethiopia, Uganda and west Kenya
• E. m. macroura (Gmelin, JF, 1789) – Senegal and Gambia to south Sudan and southwest Kenya and south to Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe and west Mozambique
• E. m. conradsi (Berger, 1908) – Ukerewe Island in Lake Victoria

Description

Males are larger than females and acquire longer tails and striking black and golden yellow plumages in the breeding season. The mantle colour is either golden yellow, or in the case of the northeastern race, E. m. macrocercus, black. The yellow shoulders persist in all male plumages, whether breeding or non-breeding.^[5]

Range and habitat

Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical seasonally wet or flooded lowland grassland. It is widely distributed in Africa, and is found in Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The distinctive race E. m. subsp. macrocercus occurs in Eritrea, Ethiopia, western Kenya and Uganda.^[5]

Breeding males of race E. m. subsp. macrocercus have black rather than yellow mantle plumage