Red-faced cisticola

The red-faced cisticola (Cisticola erythrops) is a species of bird in the family Cisticolidae. It is widely present across sub-Saharan Africa (rare in southern Africa). Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical seasonally wet or flooded lowland grassland and swamps.

Taxonomy

The red-faced cisticola was formally described in 1857 by the German ornithologist Gustav Hartlaub under the binomial name Drymoeca erythrops based on a specimen collected near Calabar in Nigeria. The specific epithet erythrops combines the Ancient Greek ερυθρος/eruthros meaning "red" with ωψ/ōps meaning "eye" or "face". The red-faced cisticola is now one of 53 species placed in the genus Cisticola that was introduced in 1829 by the German naturalist Johann Jakob Kaup.

Six subspecies are recognised:

• C. e. erythrops (Hartlaub, 1857) – Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia to Central African Republic, Congo and Gabon
• C. e. pyrrhomitra Reichenow, 1916 – southeast Sudan and Ethiopia
• C. e. niloticus Madarász, G, 1914 – central Sudan
• C. e. sylvia Reichenow, 1904 – northeast DR Congo and south Sudan to Kenya and central Tanzania
• C. e. nyasa Lynes, 1930 – southeast DR Congo and south Tanzania to east South Africa
• C. e. lepe Lynes, 1930 – Angola

The race C. e. lepe, found in Angola and possibly the southeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo, has sometimes been regarded as a separate species.

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References