Black Bee-eater - BirdForum Opus

Subspecies gularis
Photo © by Kwame Brown
Sushen forest, Ghana, May 2017

Merops gularis

Identification

Subspecies australis
Photo © by Michael Hooper
Kibali, Uganda, October 2018

20cm (8 in).

• Mainly black
• Scarlet chin and throat
• Blue forehead and supercilium, sometimes a blue line under the eye
• Streaky breast
• Blue belly, undertail-coverts and rump
• Rufous primaries

Distribution

Africa
Western Africa: Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Congo, Angola
Eastern Africa: Uganda

Taxonomy

Subspecies

There are 2 subspecies

• M. g. gularis:

• Rainforests of Sierra Leone to Nigeria (Cross River)

• M. g. australis:

• Nigeria (Cross River) to Uganda and northern Angola

Habitat

Forest edges, clearings and stream edges in rainforest, secondary forest, wooded farmland, and gallery forest and plantations.

Behaviour

Diet

The forage high in tree canopy for winged insects such as bees, wasps, ants, butterflies and dragonflies.

Breeding

They excavate a burrow in which to lay their eggs.

References

1. Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, D. Roberson, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2018. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2018. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
2. Avibase
3. Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (retrieved June 2017)
4. Wikipedia

• List of references

Recommended Citation

• BirdForum Opus contributors. (2025) Black Bee-eater. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 2 May 2025 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Black_Bee-eater

External Links

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