Pseudonigrita

Pseudonigrita is a genus of sparrow-like birds in the weaverbird family. It contains two species, which are both found in eastern Africa:

Image	Scientific name	Common Name	Distribution
	Pseudonigrita arnaudi	Grey-capped social weaver	Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda
	Pseudonigrita cabanisi	Black-capped social weaver	central and southern Ethiopia, much of Kenya, a patch of Somalia

Pseudonigrita
↑Pseudonigrita arnaudi, ↓P. cabanisi
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Ploceidae
Genus:	Pseudonigrita Reichenow, 1903
Synonyms
Somalita

Taxonomy

French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte described the grey-capped social weaver as Nigrita arnaudi in 1850, based on a specimen collected by the French explorer Joseph-Pons d'Arnaud around 1841 near Juba on the White Nile.[1] In 1884, the black-capped social weaver was first described by German East-Africa explorer Gustav Fischer and German ornithologist Anton Reichenow as Nigrita cabanisi, based on a specimen collected in 1883 by Fischer in the Pare Mountains. In 1903, Reichenow assigned both species to his newly erected genus Pseudonigrita, because he considered P. arnaudi and P. cabanisi related to weaverbirds (Ploceidae), while the other species Nigrita bicolor, N. canicapillus, N. fusconota and N. luteifrons are negrofinches assigned to the estrildid finches. In 1942, Hans von Boetticher was of the opinion that cabanisi was different enough to assign it to its own genus, and made the new combination Somalita cabanisi.[2][3]

Etymology

Pseudonigrita: Greek: ψευδος pseudos “false”; genus Nigrita Strickland, 1843[4]

Phylogeny

Based on recent DNA-analysis (which did not include P. cabanisi), the genus Pseudonigrita belongs to the group of sparrow weavers (subfamily Plocepasserinae), and is most related to Philetairus socius. This clade is sister to Plocepasser.[5] Provided that the sister relationship between the Pseudonigrita-species is correct, the following tree expresses current insights.

family Ploceidae	subfamily Amblyospizinae Amblyospiza albifrons       subfamily Plocepasserinae   Sporopipes       Plocepasser       Philetairus socius   genus Pseudonigrita   P. cabanisi     P. arnaudi             subfamily Bubalornithinae   Dinemellia dinemelli     Bubalornis     subfamily Ploceinae all other weaverbirds

References

1. Bonaparte, Charles Lucien (1850). Conspectus generum avium (in Latin). Lugduni Batavorum: E.J. Brill. p. 444.
2. "Zwartkapwever". vogelsbekijken.be (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 2017-04-24. Retrieved 2017-04-23.
3. Boetticher, Hans von (1942). "Der kleine Schwarzkopf-Sperlingsweber" (PDF). Verhandlungen der Ornithologischen Gesellschaft in Bayern. 22 (2): 207–210. Retrieved 2017-04-23.
4. Jobling, J.A. (2017). "Key to Scientific Names in Ornithology". In del Hoyo, J.; Elliott, A.; Sargatal, J.; Christie, D.A.; de Juana, E. (2018) (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions.
5. De Silva, Thilina N.; Peterson, A. Townsend; Bates, John M.; Fernandoa, Sumudu W.; Girard, Matthew G. (2017). "Phylogenetic relationships of weaverbirds (Aves: Ploceidae): A first robust phylogeny based on mitochondrial and nuclear markers". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 109: 21–32. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2016.12.013. PMID 28012957.