Common bulbul
species of bird
The common bulbul (Pycnonotus barbatus) is a member of the bulbul family of passerine birds. It is widespread throughout most of Africa except for the very arid areas, and has recently begun breeding in southernmost Spain. Ten subspecies are recognised based on the geographical variation in plumage. Some of these were formerly considered as separate species: Dodson's bulbul, the Somali bulbul and the dark-capped bulbul.
Taxonomy and systematics
The common bulbul was formally described and illustrated in 1789 by the French botanist René Desfontaines from a specimen collected near Algiers in Algeria. He placed it with the thrushes in the genus Turdus and coined the binomial name Turdus barbatus. The common bulbul is now one of 31 species placed in the genus Pycnonotus that was introduced in 1826 by the German zoologist Friedrich Boie. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek πυκνος/puknos meaning "thick" or "compact" with -νωτος/-nōtos meaning "-backed". The specific epithet barbatus is Latin meaning bearded. Alternate names for the common bulbul include black-eyed bulbul, black-capped bulbul and common garden bulbul.
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This entry incorporates text from “Common bulbul” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.