Orange-breasted Waxbill
| Orange-breasted Waxbill | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Conservation status | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Passeriformes |
| Family: | Estrildidae |
| Genus: | Amandava |
| Species: | A. subflava |
| Binomial name | |
| Amandava subflava (Vieillot, 1819) | |
| Synonyms[2] | |
|
Sporaeginthus subflavus | |
The Orange-breasted Waxbill or Zebra Waxbill[2] (Amandava subflava) is a small (approximately 9 cm long) sparrow-like bird with a reddish iris, orange breast, red bill and dark olive-green plumage. The male has a red rump, dark bars on the whitish flank and a scarlet eyebrow stripe. The female is duller and smaller than male; it lacks the male's red eyebrow.
The Orange-breasted Waxbill is found in grassland and savannas south of the Sahara in Africa. It has an estimated global extent of occurrence of 10,000,000 km². This species is also introduced to other countries, e.g., Kuwait. Its diet consists mainly of seeds, insects and shoots. The female usually lays between four and six eggs in oval-shaped nest made from grass. These nests are often the old nests of Red-collared Widowbirds.
Widespread and common throughout its large range, the Orange-breasted Waxbill is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.[1] It is listed on Appendix III of CITES in Ghana.
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A male, photographed at Cedara farm, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa
Origin
Origin and phylogeny has been obtained by Antonio Arnaiz-Villena et al.[3] Estrildinae may have originated in India and dispersed thereafter (towards Africa and Pacific Ocean habitats).
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 BirdLife International (2012). "Amandava subflava". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.2. International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved 26 November 2013.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Amandava subflava on Avibase
- ↑ Arnaiz-Villena, A; Ruiz-del-Valle V, Gomez-Prieto P, Reguera R, Parga-Lozano C, Serrano-Vela I (2009). "Estrildinae Finches (Aves, Passeriformes) from Africa, South Asia and Australia: a Molecular Phylogeographic Study". The Open Ornithology Journal 2: 29–36. doi:10.2174/1874453200902010029.