African red-rumped swallow
The African red-rumped swallow is small passerine bird in the swallow family Hirundinidae. It is found in north tropical areas of Africa south of the Sahara.
Taxonomy
The African red-rumped swallow was formally described and illustrated in 1845 by the German naturalist Eduard Rüppell based on a specimen collected in the Tembien region of northern Ethiopia. He coined the binomial name Cecropis melanocrissus where the specific epithet combines the Latin melas, melanos meaning "black" with Modern Latin crissum meaning "vent".Four subspecies are recognised:C. m. domicella – west Africa from Senegambia to east SudanC. m. melanocrissus Rüppell, 1845 – Ethiopia and EritreaC. m. kumboensis – Sierra Leone and west CameroonC. m. emini – southeast Sudan, Uganda and Kenya to Malawi and north Zambia
The subspecies C. m. domicella was formerly treated as a separate species, the West African swallow, while the subspecies C. m. melanocrissus, C. m. kumboensis and C. m. emini were formerly placed in the red-rumped swallow C. daurica complex. The taxa were re-arranged based on differences in morphology and genetics. As part of the rearrangement, the red-rumped swallow complex was additionally split into the European red-rumped swallow and the eastern red-rumped swallow.