Laniarius


Laniarius is a genus of brightly coloured, carnivorous passerine birds commonly known as boubous or gonoleks. Not to be confused with the similar-sounding genus Lanius, they were formerly classed with the true shrikes in the family Laniidae, but they and related genera are now considered sufficiently distinctive to be separated from that group as the bush-shrike family Malaconotidae.
This is an African group of species which are found in scrub or open woodland. They are similar in habits to shrikes, hunting insects and other small prey from a perch on a bush. Although similar in build to the shrikes, these tend to be either colourful species or largely black. Some species are also quite secretive.

Taxonomy and systematics

The genus Laniarius was introduced by the French ornithologist Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot in 1816 with the yellow-crowned gonolek as the type species.
The closest relatives of the genus appear to be the genus Chlorophoneus. Previously, members of the genus Laniarius had been classified on the basis of plumage. However, a 2008 molecular study found that the species had developed different colours and patterns in plumage independently and similar-coloured species were often unrelated. The authors hypothesized that the ancestor of the genus may have been dark-coloured.
There are 22 recognised species:
ImageCommon NameScientific nameDistribution
Lowland sooty boubouLaniarius leucorhynchusAngola, Benin, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Togo, and Uganda.
Mountain sooty boubouLaniarius poensisNigeria, Bioko; Rwanda, Burundi and adjacent areas of Uganda and Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Albertine sooty boubouLaniarius holomelasUganda and Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Willard’s sooty boubouLaniarius willardiBurundi and Uganda
Fuelleborn's boubouLaniarius fuelleborniMalawi, Tanzania, and Zambia
Slate-colored boubouLaniarius funebrisEthiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Lühder's bushshrikeLaniarius luehderiAngola, Burundi, Cameroon, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Braun's bushshrikeLaniarius brauniAngola
Gabela bushshrikeLaniarius amboimensisAngola.
Red-naped bushshrikeLaniarius ruficepsEthiopia, Kenya, and Somalia
Black boubouLaniarius nigerrimusSomalia and northern Kenya.
Ethiopian boubouLaniarius aethiopicusEritrea, Ethiopia, northwest Somalia, and northern Kenya.
Tropical boubouLaniarius majorsub-Saharan Africa
East Coast boubouLaniarius sublacteussoutheast Somalia to northeast Tanzania, and Zanzibar island.
Southern boubouLaniarius ferrugineussoutheastern Zimbabwe, eastern Botswana, Mozambique and southern and eastern South Africa
Swamp boubouLaniarius bicolorAngola, Botswana, Cameroon, Republic of the Congo, DRC, Gabon, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Turati's boubouLaniarius turatiiGuinea, Guinea-Bissau, and Sierra Leone
Yellow-crowned gonolekLaniarius barbarusSenegal and Democratic Republic of Congo east to Ethiopia.
Papyrus gonolekLaniarius mufumbiriBurundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda
Black-headed gonolekLaniarius erythrogasterBurundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Crimson-breasted shrikeLaniarius atrococcineussouthern Angola to the Free State province in South Africa.
Yellow-breasted boubouLaniarius atroflavuswestern Cameroon and adjacent southeastern Nigeria

Formerly, some authorities also considered the following species as species within the genus Laniarius: