The Madagascar stonechat (Saxicola sibilla) is a species of stonechat, endemic to Madagascar. It is a small bird, closely similar to the African stonechat in both plumage and behaviour, but distinguished from it by the more extensive black on the throat and minimal orange-red on the upper breast of the males.[1]
In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the Madagascar stonechat in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in Madagascar. He used the French name Le traquet de Madagascar and the Latin Rubetra Madagascariensis.[2] Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.[3] When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson.[3] One of these was the Madagascar stonechat. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Motacilla sibilla and cited Brisson's work.[4] The specific name sibilla is from the Latin sibilare "to whistle".[5] This species is now placed in the genus Saxicola that was introduced by the German naturalist Johann Matthäus Bechstein in 1802.[6]
The Madagascar stonechat has generally been considered a subspecies of African stonechat (as Saxicola torquatus sibilla[1]), but recent genetic evidence has shown that it is distinct, more closely related to Reunion stonechat than it is to African stonechat,[7] on which basis it is now accepted as a distinct species. Three subspecies are recognised.[8]
The Madagascar stonechat (Saxicola sibilla) is a species of stonechat, endemic to Madagascar. It is a small bird, closely similar to the African stonechat in both plumage and behaviour, but distinguished from it by the more extensive black on the throat and minimal orange-red on the upper breast of the males.