The African red-rumped swallow (Cecropis melanocrissus) is small passerine bird in the swallow family Hirundinidae. It is found in northern areas of Africa south of the Sahara.
Taxonomy
The African red-rumped swallow was formally described and illustrated in 1845 by the German naturalist Eduard Rüppell based on a specimen collected in the Tembien region of northern Ethiopia. He coined the binomial nameCecropis melanocrissus where the specific epithet combines the Latinmelas, melanos meaning "black" with Modern Latincrissum meaning "vent".[1][2][3]
C. m. domicella (Heuglin, 1869) – west Africa from Senegambia to east Sudan
C. m. melanocrissusRüppell, 1845 – Ethiopia and Eritrea
C. m. kumboensis (Bannerman, 1923) – Sierra Leone and west Cameroon
C. m. emini (Reichenow, 1892) – southeast Sudan, Uganda and Kenya to Malawi and north Zambia
The subspecies domicella was formerly treated as a separate species, the West African swallow. The subspecies melanocrissus, kumboensis and emini were formerly placed in the red-rumped swallow complex. The taxa were re-arranged based mainly on differences in morphology. As part of the rearrangement the red-rumped swallow complex was split into the European red-rumped swallow and the eastern red-rumped swallow.[4]
References
^Rüppell, Eduard (1845). Systematische Uebersicht der Vögel Nord-Ost-Afrika's : nebst Abbildung und Beschreibung von fünfzig Theils unbekannten, Theils noch nicht bildlich dargestellten Arten (in German). Frankfurt A.M.: In Commission der S. Schmerber'schen Buchhandlung (nachfolger H. Keller). pp. 17-18, Plate 5.
^Jobling, James A. "melanocrissus". The Key to Scientific Names. Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Retrieved 5 October 2024.
^ abGill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (August 2024). "Swallows". IOC World Bird List Version 14.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 6 October 2024.
