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TAXONOMY OF THE SOUTHERN AFRICAN ZOSTEROPS
Author(s) -
Clancey P. A.
Publication year - 1967
Publication title -
ibis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.933
H-Index - 80
eISSN - 1474-919X
pISSN - 0019-1019
DOI - 10.1111/j.1474-919x.1967.tb04006.x
Subject(s) - taxonomy (biology) , zoology , range (aeronautics) , biology , ecology , geography , composite material , materials science
Summary The four major groupings into which the Zosterops forms of southern African can be arranged have for long been treated by conservative systematists as constituting four discrete species ( Z. capensis, Z. pallidus, Z. virens and Z. senegalensis ). In a major study, published in 1957, Moreau arrived at the tentative conclusion that in zoo‐geographical South Africa Z. cupensis and Z. wirens are clearly conspecific, Z. pallidus is a doubtful monotypic species, and Z . senegalais is a polytypic species of wide continental range, specifically segregated from the foregoing on the basis of a wingltail ratio character, and of juxtaposition without evidence of interbreeding. A new study of the complex problem of Zosterops relationships in South Africa based on a critical study of over 900 specimens examined in the Durban Museum, suggests that only two species ( Z. pallidus and Z. senegahsis ), very closely related and part of the same superspecies, are actually involved.