Weaver news

Weaver Wednesday [235] - Discovery [118]: Overview 1

2016-12-14 (757)

Weaver Wednesday (species list)

Overview - Discovery by decades

Introduction

The second Weaver Wednesday series, called Discovery, started with the first weaver to be described, the Black-winged Bishop, on 17 September 2014, and ran in chronological sequence for 117 weeks, ending with Kilombero Weaver on 7 December 2016.

The weavers were formally described over the period 1758 to 1990, but some weavers were known long before Linnaeus. The highest number of weaver species described per decade was in the 1880s (n=13) and 1890s (n=11). Most weavers were described by 1910, with 0, 1 or 2 being described per decade there-after.

Illustration

decades — Number of weavers described per decade, with 4 species illustrated (L to R):
Black-winged Bishop, the first weaver in this series, described in 1758.
Sao Tome Weaver, an island endemic described in 1848.
Rufous-tailed Weaver, described in 1887 during the peak for weaver descriptions.
Kilombero Weaver, described in 1990, the most recent weaver to be described.

A more extensive overview appears in a Biodiversity Observations paper titled Overview of the discovery of the weavers.