Highland lark
The highland lark is a species of small passerine bird in the lark family Alaudidae found in Africa from Guinea to west Sudan. It was formerly treated as a subspecies of the rufous-naped lark.
Taxonomy
The highland lark was formally described in 1923 by the British Admiral Hubert Lynes based on a specimen collected near Kurra in the Darfur region of southwest Sudan. He considered it to be a subspecies of the rufous-naped lark and coined the trinomial name Mirafra africana kurrae. The highland lark is now treated as a separate species and placed in the genus Corypha based on the results of two molecular phylogenetic studies by a team of ornithologists led by Per Alström that were published in 2023 and 2024.Five subspecies are recognised:
- C. k. henrici – Guinea to southwest Ivory Coast
- C. k. batesi – central Nigeria to southeast Niger and west Chad
- C. k. stresemanni – central north Cameroon
- C. k. bamendae – west Cameroon
- C. k. kurrae – west Sudan