Weaver news

New Weaver Wednesday series - Discovery

2014-09-16 (569)

gravit8 Weaver Wednesday - Discovery

Black-winged Bishop
First pic of Black-winged Bishop,
from Swainson 1837
Over the last 117 weeks (2 and 1/4 years), the biology of every weaver species (family Ploceidae) was covered. The sequence was random, although first one species from each genus was chosen, and usually better known species were covered sooner.

Tomorrow a new series starts, where the history of each weaver species will be summarised. This will include a summary of the discovery and naming of the weaver species, followed by the following headers:

  • Scientific citation - the reference for the original description, with type locality
  • Meaning of scientific name
  • Alternate names
  • Collector
  • Date collected
  • Locality collected
  • Type specimens - where housed, if known.

As usual, the news item will be well illustrated, usually including the first published illustration of the species.

The sequence of species will be chronological, ie in the sequence that the weaver species were originally described. Linnaeus described 5 weavers in his monumental work on describing animal species in Systema Naturae, ed. 10 in 1758, and the first of the 5 weaver species listed is the Black-winged Bishop. Enjoy the series!
full list of weaver species