The grey tit was
formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist
Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of
Carl Linnaeus's
Systema Naturae. He placed it with the tits in the
genus Parus and coined the
binomial name Parus afer. Gmelin based his account on the "black-breasted titmouse" that had been described in 1783 by the English ornithologist
John Latham in his book
A General Synopsis of Birds. Latham had examined a specimen from the
Cape of Good Hope that formed part of the collection of the naturalist
Joseph Banks. The grey tit was moved to the genus
Melaniparus based on the results of a
molecular phylogenetic study published in 2013 that found that a group of species formed a distinct
clade. The genus
Melaniparus had been introduced in 1850 by the French naturalist
Charles Lucien Bonaparte. The genus name combines the
Ancient Greek melas,
melanos "black" and the genus
Parus introduced by
Carl Linnaeus in 1758. The specific epithet
afer is
Latin meaning "African". Two
subspecies are recognised: •
M. a. arens (
Clancey, 1963) – south South Africa and Lesotho •
M. a. afer (
Gmelin, JF, 1789) – Namibia and west South Africa ==References==