Klaas's cuckoo
male
female
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Cuculiformes
Family: Cuculidae
Genus: Chrysococcyx
Species:
C. klaas
Binomial name
Chrysococcyx klaas
(Stephens, 1815)

Klaas's cuckoo (Chrysococcyx klaas) is a species of cuckoo in the family Cuculidae which is native to the wooded regions of sub-Saharan Africa. The specific name honours Klaas, the Khoikhoi man who collected the type specimen.

Name

The species was named Le Coucou de Klaas by French explorer François Le Vaillant in 1806, in his book Histoire naturelle des oiseaux d'Afrique in recognition of his Khoikhoi servant and assistant, named Klaas, who found the type specimen.[2] Le Vaillant wrote:[lower-alpha 1][3]

...mon ami Klaas ... Recois l'hommage que je t'adresse ici ... Puissent les naturalistes conserver à l’espèce que je vais décrire, le nom que je lui donne, et consacre ainsi les services que tu m’as rendus: ils me prouveront par là que mes travaux ont eu quelque prix à leurs yeux.

Le Vaillant's wish was honoured when the bird's first binomial name, Cuculus klaas, was applied by James Francis Stephens in 1815,[4] and the tribute to Klaas has persisted to the present binomial.

The bird is the first known case of a species being named after an Indigenous individual,[2] and Le Vaillant is the only colonial biologist to name bird species after local people.[5]

Range

The species occurs throughout sub-Saharan Africa with the exception of very arid areas in the south-west.[1]

Description

Engraving by William Lizars after William Swainson from Sir William Jardine’s "Naturalist’s Library: Ornithology" (v. 12, 1853 edition).

Klaas's cuckoo is 16–18 cm (6.3–7.1 inches) in length. The species exhibits sexual dimorphism. Males have a glossy green body with few markings and plain white underparts. Females have a bronze-brown body, greenish wing coverts and faintly barred white underparts. Viewed in flight, the male is largely white with dark primaries and females appear mostly brown. Males and females both have a small white post-ocular patch.[6]

Notes

  1. ↑ "...my friend Klaas ... Receive my homage to you here ... May naturalists preserve for the species I am going to describe, the name I give it, and thus consecrate the services you have rendered me: they will prove to me by this that my work has had some value in their eyes."

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Chrysococcyx klaas.
  1. 1 2 BirdLife International (2016). "Chrysococcyx klaas". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2016: e.T22684017A93011027. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22684017A93011027.en. Retrieved 11 November 2021.
  2. 1 2 "Exploring the People and Stories Behind the Names: BHL Empowers Research on Taxonomic History". Biodiversity Heritage Library.
  3. ↑ Le Vaillant, François (1806). Histoire naturelle des oiseaux d'Afrique (in French). Vol. 5. Paris: Chez J.J. Fuchs. p. 53.
  4. ↑ Shaw, George; Griffith; Heath, Charles; Stephens, James Francis (1815). General zoology, or Systematic natural history. Vol. 9:pt.1-2. London: G. Kearsley. p. 128.
  5. ↑ Beolens, B.; Watkins, M. (2004). Whose Bird?: Common Bird Names and the People They Commemorate. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-10359-5.
  6. ↑ Harrison, J. A.; Cherry, M. (1997). "Klaas's cuckoo". The atlas of southern African birds (PDF). Vol. 1. Johannesburg: BirdLife South Africa. pp. 708–709.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.