Bulo Burti Boubou - BirdForum Opus

Laniarius liberatus

Identification

20cm. Black upperparts, black nape, mantle, and tail, white wing bars, white eye line, buffy-yellow throat and breast, white underparts.

Classified as Critically Endangered in the 2008 IUCN Red List¹.

Distribution

Central Somalia.

Taxonomy

Uncertain. Recent research³ indicates that the specimen captured was a colour variant of the taxon L. aethiopicus erlangeri². This taxon, in turn, is probably sufficiently different from the other subspecies of the Tropical Boubou L. aethiopicus to be regarded as a separate species L. erlangeri.³

Habitat

Known from a single specimen netted in Acacia scrub.

Behaviour

Unknown.

References

1. BirdLife International (2008) Species factsheet: Laniarius liberatus. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 12/8/2008.
2. Clements JF. 2007. The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World. 6th ed., with updates to October 2008. Cornell University Press. ISBN 9780801445019
3. Nguembock B, Fjeldså J, Couloux A & Pasquet E. 2008. Phylogeny of Laniarius: molecular data reveal L. liberatus synonymous with L. erlangeri and "plumage coloration" as unreliable morphological characters for defining species and species groups. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 48, 396-407.

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