Introduction

The Blue-billed Malimbe had been collected by Captain Edward Sabine, an Irish astronomer, geophysicist, ornithologist, explorer, and soldier.

Sabine travelled halfway around the world to study the the "oblateness" (shape) of the Earth and carried out measurements on the intertropical coasts of Africa and the Americas. Sabine had struck up a friendship with Douglas Clavering, an officer of the British Royal Navy, who agreed to take Sabine on board the Pheasant. They travelled to Sierra Leone, the Island of St Thomas, Ascension Island, Bahia, Maranham, Trinidad, Jamaica, and New York during the years 1821-23.

The first illustration of a Blue-billed Malimbe is in Gray (1849), although it is a poor illustration (the original may be in colour, the internet scanned version is not). The next potential illustration is by Reichenbach (1863), who illustrated most weavers known at that time - he described 3 malimbes but the paintings of these species do not appear to have been published. This species was not illustrated again until Bannerman (1949).

Scientific citation

Meaning of names

First English name

Alternate names

Collector

Date collected

Locality collected

Type specimens

Distribution. The Blue-billed Malimbe is found from Senegal to western Uganda and northern Angola, as shown in the map (below, from Birds of Africa). It has no subspecies, although two were proposed in the past.

Habitat. The Blue-billed Malimbe inhabits primary, logged and mature old secondary lowland forest, keeping largely to the undergrowth. It is also found in riverine forest and dense thickets near water, or in swamp forest. The Blue-billed Malimbe is solitary or found in pairs or family parties.

Food. The Blue-billed Malimbe feeds on a wide variety of arthropods, including larvae, grubs, chrysalises, caterpillars, ants, hemipterans, grasshoppers, small beetles, butterflies and spiders. It sometimes feeds on seeds or oil palm fruits. It climbs tree limbs like a woodpecker, while foraging for arthropods.

Breeding. This species is monogamous and the male builds a new nest every season. Old nests may survive for several years so that a few nests may be clustered nearby. Sometimes several pairs form loose colonies. The nest is ball-shaped, made of strips of epiphytes, palm fibres, twigs and tendrils (see photo right, from Collias NE, Collias EC. 1964. Evolution of nest building in weaverbirds. Univ. Calif. Publ. Zool. 73:1-239). The nests often overhang forest rivers and ponds. The entrance tunnel is not very long, as in the nests of some malimbes.

The eggs are pale with darker markings, and incubation is by the female only.

A remarkable nesting association has been found in this species. They like to build their nests in the vicinity of dens of the Central African Dwarf Crocodile Osteolaemus tetraspis, presumably because the presence of crocodiles keeps predators away.