In 1760, the French zoologist
Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the African Stonechat in his
Ornithologie based on a specimen collected from the
Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. He used the French name and the Latin
Muscicapa Torquata Capitis Bonae Spei. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the
binomial system and are not recognised by the
International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. 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. The
specific name is from Latin ''
"collared". This species is now placed in the genus Saxicola'' that was introduced by the German naturalist
Johann Matthäus Bechstein in 1802. The closest relative of this species are apparently not the
Eurasian populations but the
Réunion stonechat (
S. tectes), but still the "white-collared"
Saxicola form a distinct group in the genus.
S. torquatus and
S. tectes form a
sub-Saharan African lineage that diverged from the Eurasian one in the
Late Pliocene, roughly 2.5
million years ago. Réunion was colonized shortly thereafter, indicating a rapid expansion along the
Indian Ocean coast of Africa. With the
Sahara drying out in the subsequent
Quaternary glaciation, the African and Eurasian populations became isolated for good. They differ slightly in size, and more in the extent of the orange-red on the upper breast of the males, and whether the lower breast is white with a distinct boundary from the upper breast, or pale orange with an indistinct boundary from the darker upper breast. The extent of the orange-red also varies with time of year, often extending on to the belly outside the breeding season. •
S. t. felix Bates, 1936 – southwest Saudi Arabia and west Yemen •
S. t. albofasciatus Rüppell, 1840 – southeast Sudan and northeast Uganda to central Ethiopia ::upper breast black, not orange-red •
S. t. jebelmarrae Lynes, 1920 – east Chad and west Sudan •
S. t. moptanus Bates, 1932 – Senegal and south Mali :The smallest subspecies. •
S. t. nebularum Bates, 1930 – Tropical West Africa from Sierra Leone to west Ivory Coast :Extensive orange-red on breast and also flanks. •
S. t. axillaris (
Shelley, 1885) – east Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, north and west Tanzania •
S. t. promiscuus Hartert, 1922 – south Tanzania to east Zimbabwe and west Mozambique :Very limited orange-red on uppermost part of breast only. •
S. t. salax (
Verreaux, J &
Verreaux, E, 1851) – east Nigeria to northwest Angola,
Bioko Island •
S. t. stonei Bowen, 1931 – east and south Angola to southwest Tanzania south to north South Africa and Botswana •
S. t. clanceyi Courtenay-Latimer, 1961 – coastal west South Africa •
S. t. torquatus (Linnaeus, 1766) – central South Africa •
S. t. oreobates Clancey, 1956 – Lesotho •
S. t. voeltzkowi Grote, 1926 –
Grande Comore •
S. t. sibilla (Linnaeus, 1766) –
Madagascar except north, central (Madagascar stonechat group) •
S. t. tsaratananae Milon, 1950 – north
Madagascar (Madagascar stonechat group) •
S. t. ankaratrae Salomonsen, 1934 – central
Madagascar (Madagascar stonechat group) The subspecies
S. t. sibilla,
S. t. tsaratananae and
S. t. ankaratrae have sometimes been considered as a separate species, the Madagascar stonechat. ==Description==