Cardinal quelea
species of bird
The cardinal quelea (Quelea cardinalis) is a species of bird in the family Ploceidae.
It is found in Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.
Description
The cardinal quelea is a small (about 10 centimetres or 3.9 inches long) sparrow-like bird with a short heavy black bill, that breeds in colonies. The male in breeding plumage has a red head extending onto the breast but not onto the streaked nape. The female has a yellowish face, brow stripes and throat. The non-breeding plumage of the male resembles that of the female, but retains some red on its head.
Taxonomy
Gustav Hartlaub was the first to describe the cardinal quelea, giving it the scientific name Hyphantica cardinalis in 1880, based on specimens that were collected by Emin Pasha near Lado in South-Sudan during 1879. In 1951, Hans von Boetticher regarded the cardinal quelea and red-headed quelea sufficiently different from the red-billed quelea to create a new genus Queleopsis. Its name in Swahili is kwelea kidari-chekundu.
Phylogeny
Based on recent DNA-analysis, the red-headed quelea forms a clade with the cardinal quelea, and this clade is sister to the red-billed quelea Q. quelea.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 24, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1301031. The first chronological checks are 1880, 1879 and 1951.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cardinal quelea” 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.