The white-winged black tit (Melaniparus leucomelas) is a passerinebird in the tit family Paridae. It is also known as the white-winged tit, dark-eyed black tit or northern black tit.[2] The species was first described by Eduard Rüppell in 1840.
Description
It is mainly black with a white wing patch, but differs from the more northern white-shouldered tit (Melaniparus guineensis) with which it sometimes considered conspecific in that it has a dark eye.
Range and races
It is found in central Africa, from Angola in the west to Ethiopia in the east. There are two races:[3]
M. l. subsp. leucomelas Rüppell, 1840 – Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan and South Sudan
M. l. subsp. insignis Cabanis, 1880 – African equator to southern subtropics
Taxonomy
The white-winged black tit was formerly one of the many species in the genus Parus but was moved to Melaniparus after a molecular phylogenetic analysis published in 2013 showed that the members of the new genus formed a distinct clade.[4][5]
^Gosler, A. & Clement, P. (2019). "Dark-eyed Black Tit (Melaniparus leucomelas)". In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D. A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. Retrieved 26 November 2019.
