Pytilia Phoenicoptera Bird

English Name:  Red-winged Pytilia
Latin Name:  Pytilia phoenicoptera
Protonym:  Pytilia phoenicoptera BirdsW.Afr. 1 p.203 pl.16
Taxonomy:  Passeriformes / Estrildidae / Pytilia
Taxonomy Code:  rewpyt1
Type Locality:  West Africa = Gambia, see Hartlaub, 1857, Syst. Ornith. Westafrika, p. 145.
Author:  Swainson
Publish Year:  1837
IUCN Status:  Least Concern

DEFINITIONS

PYTILIA
(Estrildidae; Ϯ Red-winged Pytilia P. phoenicoptera) Dim. < genus Pitylus Cuvier, 1829, grosbeak; "RED WINGED BENGALY.  Pytilia phœnicoptera, SWAINS.  ...  Nearly all the types which represent the order of waders have the bill much more lengthened than any of their immediate congeners. We see this throughout  all the larger groups of nature, whether in quadrupeds or birds, fishes or insects. We may even trace it in the present subfamily, in the genus Carduelis, and we find this same character in the type before us, distinguished as it is by having a more lengthened bill than is to be found in any of the divisions just made. It is separated from Estrelda by its short tail, and from Amadina by its lengthened bill. A second example is that lovely bird the Fringilla elegans of authors. Both these, in addition to the above characters, have the second quill shortened, and conspicuously narrowed towards the end; the feet are small, and the tail almost even; the bill, as before observed, is shaped like that of Euplectes." (Swainson 1837); "Pytilia¹ Swainson, 1837, Birds W. Africa, 1, p. 203. Type, by monotypy, Pytilia phoenicoptera Swainson.  ...  ¹ Swainson, 1837 (March or May), Birds W. Africa, 1, p. 203, used Pytilia, and in 1837 (June or July), Class. Birds, 2, p. 280, used Pytelia. In the absence of any indication as to which he preferred I use the earliest name." (Traylor in Peters 1968, XIV, 312).
Var. Pitylia, Pytelia, Pitelia.
Synon. Marquetia, Zonogastris.

phoenicoptera
Gr. φοινικοπτερος phoinikopteros  red-feathered  < φοινιξ phoinix, φοινικος phoinikos  crimson; -πτερος -pteros  -winged  < πτερον pteron  wing.

SUBSPECIES

Red-winged Pytilia (phoenicoptera)
Latin Name: Pytilia phoenicoptera phoenicoptera
phoenicoptera
Gr. φοινικοπτερος phoinikopteros  red-feathered  < φοινιξ phoinix, φοινικος phoinikos  crimson; -πτερος -pteros  -winged  < πτερον pteron  wing.

Red-winged Pytilia (emini)
Latin Name: Pytilia phoenicoptera emini
emini
Mehmet Emin Bey, later Emin Pasha, the adopted name of Dr Eduard Carl Oscar Theodor Schnitzer (1840-1892) German administrator in the Ottoman service, Pasha of Equatorial Province, Egyptian Sudan 1878-1889, physician, naturalist, collector, murdered by Arab slave-traders (subsp. Agapornis swindernianus, subsp. Argya rubiginosa, syn. Aviceda cuculoides verreauxi, subsp. Cecropis daurica, subsp. Cisticola aberrans, syn. Cisticola chiniana humilis, syn. Cisticola woosnami, syn. Coturnix adansonii, subsp. Criniger calurus, syn. Glareola nuchalis, subsp. Lamprotornis chalcurus, subsp. Ploceus baglafecht, syn. Prodotiscus insignis, syn. Pseudonigrita arnaudi dorsalis, syn. Pterocles exustus, syn. Pternistis icterorhynchus, syn. Ptilopachus petrosus, subsp. Pytilia phoenicoptera, subsp. Rhinopomastus aterrimus, subsp. Rhinoptilus cinctus, subsp. Salpornis salvadori, subsp. Sporopipes frontalis, subsp. Tauraco schuettii, subsp. Tchagra australis, subsp. Terpsiphone rufiventer, Trachyphonus, subsp. Turdoides jardineii).
● See: eminibey