Red-headed Weaver Anaplectes rubriceps Scientific name definitions

The beautiful and (especially in males) very distinctive Red-headed Weaver inhabits mainly broadleaf woodland, bushveld, miombo, and well-wooded acacia savanna in subtropical and tropical moist regions across much of eastern and southern Africa, as well as more narrowly, and discontinuously, through sub-Saharan West Africa. Although reasonably numerous in many parts of its range, it is local or uncommon in places, being absent for example from the central Kalahari and southwestern Zimbabwe, much of eastern Somalia, and the coastal littoral of Mozambique. This ploceid is mainly insectivorous, although some fruit and nectar is taken, at least locally, and in many parts of its distribution the species joins mixed-species foraging flocks in the nonbreeding season. The Red-headed Weaver appears to be both polygynous and monogamous, even in the same regions, and there is often just a single adult male per small colony; reports of larger nesting groups, of more than nine nests, are generally few. The nest is usually suspended from a tree (although man-made structures are sometimes used), woven from dry twigs, and is characterized by a long entrance tunnel. Although the genus Anaplectes has been generally used for this species for much of the last half-century (various aspects of its plumage and nest represent something of a matrix of characters between Ploceus and Malimbus), recently accrued molecular-genetic data for the Ploceidae suggest that the most appropriate nomenclatural solution to the relationships uncovered would be to revert to Malimbus (in common with some earlier authorities).