Violet-backed starling


The violet-backed starling, also known as the plum-coloured starling or amethyst starling, is a relatively small species of starling in the family Sturnidae. It is the only member of the genus Cinnyricinclus. This strongly sexually dimorphic species is found widely in the woodlands and savannah forest edges of mainland sub-Saharan Africa. It is rarely seen on the ground, but instead found in trees and other sources away from the ground.

Taxonomy

The violet-backed starling was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1775 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Turdus leucogaster in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. The type locality is Benin in West Africa. The violet-backed starling is now the only species placed in the genus Cinnyricinclus that was introduced by the French naturalist René Lesson in 1840. The violet-backed starling was designated as the type species by the English naturalist George Robert Gray in 1855. The genus name is combines Cinnyris, a genus of sunbirds that had been introduced by the French naturalist Georges Cuvier in 1816, and the New Latin cinclus meaning "thrush". The specific leucogaster is from the Ancient Greek leukos meaning "white" and gastēr meaning "belly".
Three subspecies are recognised:
The violet-backed starling is a sexually dimorphic species in which the males possess an iridescent violet back while the females are brown. During breeding, the female will incubate 2-4 eggs for 12–14 days. The male will help feed chicks until they fledge after about 21 days.