Abyssinian thrush


The Abyssinian thrush is a passerine bird in the family Turdidae. It is also known as the African mountain thrush, or northern olive thrush The species was formerly treated as conspecific with the olive thrush but the species were split based on the genetic differences. The ranges do not overlap. The Abyssinian thrush is found in Eritrea and other parts of the Horn of Africa, as well as an area to the southeast extending from the African Great Lakes region to north eastern Zambia and Malawi.

Taxonomy

The Abyssinian thrush was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the thrushes in the genus Turdus and coined the binomial name Turdus abyssinicus. Gmelin based his description on "Merle brun d'Abissinie" that had been described in 1775 by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in his multi-volume work Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux.
The Abyssinian thrush was formerly usually considered to be conspecific with the olive thrush. The species were split based on the results of a molecular phylogenetic study published in 2005 that compared mitochondrial DNA sequences.
Six subspecies are recognised:T. a. abyssinicus Gmelin, JF, 1789 – Eritrea and Ethiopia to north, west, central Kenya, extreme north Tanzania, north Uganda and SudanT. a. deckeni Cabanis, 1868 – north to northeast TanzaniaT. a. oldeani Sclater, WL & Moreau, 1935 – central north TanzaniaT. a. bambusicola Neumann, 1908 – east DR Congo to southwest Uganda and northwest TanzaniaT. a. baraka – Virunga Volcanoes and southwest UgandaT. a. nyikae Reichenow, 1904 – east, south Tanzania, north Malawi and northeast Zambia

Description

Image:african mountain-thrush2.jpg|thumb|In Debre Berhan, Ethiopia
It is long. This variable forest thrush is generally darker than the African thrush and has an orange bill. It is also darker than the Kurrichane thrush and has no malar stripes. Generally the birds get darker at higher altitudes.

Distribution, habitat and habits

The Abyssinian thrush occurs in the highlands of eastern Africa from South Sudan south to northern Mozambique.
Its habitat includes forests woodlands, exotic plantations, parks and gardens.
This species is a typical member of the genus Turdus but its habits and biology have been little studied, as it was considered to be a subspecies of olive thrush.