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Issue: Vol. 4438 No. 1: 20 Jun. 2018
Type: Article
Published: 2018-06-20
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4438.1.4
Page range: 105–127
Abstract views: 200
PDF downloaded: 8

Taxonomic revision of the Square-tailed Drongo species complex (Passeriformes: Dicruridae) with description of a new species from western Africa

Institut Systématique Evolution Biodiversité (ISYEB), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, EPHE, 57 rue Cuvier, CP51, 75005 Paris, France.
Centre de Gestion de l'Environnement des monts Nimba et Simandou / Ministère de l'Environnement, des Eaux et Forêts, Conakry, Guinée-Conakry.
Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and Department of Integrative Biology, 3101 Valley Life Science Building, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3160, USA
Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Aves Dicruridae western Africa biometry mitochondrial DNA Niger River

Abstract

We describe a new species of drongo in the Square-tailed Drongo (Dicrurus ludwigii) complex using a combination of biometric and genetic data. The new species differs from previously described taxa in the Square-tailed Drongo complex by possessing a significantly heavier bill and via substantial genetic divergence (6.7%) from its sister-species D. sharpei. The new species is distributed across the gallery forests of coastal Guinea, extending to the Niger and Benue Rivers of Nigeria. We suspect that this taxon was overlooked by previous avian systematists because they either lacked comparative material from western Africa or because the key diagnostic morphological character (bill characteristics) was not measured. We provide an updated taxonomy of the Square-tailed Drongo species complex.

 

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