Purple grenadier

Species of bird

Purple grenadier
A male in Naboisho Conservancy, Kenya
Female, in Serengeti National Park
Conservation status

Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Estrildidae
Genus: Granatina
Species:
G. ianthinogaster
Binomial name
Granatina ianthinogaster
(Reichenow, 1879)

The purple grenadier (Granatina ianthinogaster) is a common species of estrildid finch found in eastern Africa.

Description

The length averages 13.3 cm (5.25 in). All ages and sexes have a black tail, and adults have a red bill. The male has a cinnamon-colored head and neck with a blue patch surrounding the eye. The rump is purplish blue and the underparts are violet-blue with variable rufous patches. The female is smaller and mostly cinnamon brown with white barring on the underparts and silver-blue eyepatches. Juveniles are like females, but mostly unbarred tawny-brown with a reddish-brown bill.[2]

The song (in Kenya) is described as "a high, thin chit-cheet tsereea-ee-ee tsit-tsit, or cheerer cheet tsee-tsee sur-chit."[2]

Range and habitat

It is found in subtropical and tropical (lowland) dry shrubland in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda, an estimated global extent of occurrence of 1,500,000 km2. The status of the species is evaluated as Least Concern.[3]

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Purple grenadier.
  1. ^ BirdLife International (2016). "Granatina ianthinogaster". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2016: e.T22719504A94630724. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22719504A94630724.en.
  2. ^ a b Zimmerman, Dale A.; Turner, Donald A.; Pearson, David J. (1999). Birds of Kenya and Northern Tanzania. Princeton University Press. pp. 254–255, 553. ISBN 978-0-691-01022-9.
  3. ^ BirdLife International (2004). "Uraeginthus ianthinogaster". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2004. Retrieved 7 June 2007.old-form url .
Taxon identifiers
Uraeginthus ianthinogaster


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