Highland lark explained

The highland lark (Corypha kurrae) is a species of small passerine bird in the lark family Alaudidae found in Africa from Guinea to west Sudan. It was formerly treated as a subspecies of the rufous-naped lark (Corypha africana).

Taxonomy

The highland lark was formally described in 1923 by the British Admiral Hubert Lynes based on a specimen collected near Kurra in the Darfur region of southwest Sudan. He considered it to be a subspecies of the rufous-naped lark and coined the trinomial name Mirafra africana kurrae.^{[1] [2]} The highland lark is now treated as a separate species and placed in the genus Corypha based on the results of two molecular phylogenetic studies by a team of ornithologists led by Per Alström that were published in 2023 and 2024.^{[3] [4] [5]}

Five subspecies are recognised:^[5]

• C. k. henrici (Bates, GL, 1930) – Guinea to southwest Ivory Coast
• C. k. batesi (Bannerman, 1923) – central Nigeria to southeast Niger and west Chad
• C. k. stresemanni (Bannerman, 1923) – central north Cameroon
• C. k. bamendae (Serle, 1959) – west Cameroon
• C. k. kurrae (Lynes, 1923) – west Sudan

Notes and References

1. Lynes . Hubert . Hubert Lynes . 1923 . Mirafra fischeri furensis subsp. nov. . Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club . 43 . 95 .
2. Book: Mayr . Ernst . Ernst Mayr . Greenway . James C. Jr . 1960 . Check-List of Birds of the World . 9 . Museum of Comparative Zoology . Cambridge, Massachusetts . 10 .
3. Alström . P. . Per Alström . Mohammadi . Z. . Enbody . E.D. . Irestedt . M. . Engelbrecht . D. . Crochet . P.-A. . Guillaumet . A. . Rancilhac . L. . Tieleman . B.I. . Olsson . U. . Donald . P.F. . Stervander . M. . 2023 . Systematics of the avian family Alaudidae using multilocus and genomic data . Avian Research . 14 . 100095 . 10.1016/j.avrs.2023.100095 . free.
4. Alström . P. . Mohammadi . Z. . Donald . P.F. . Nymark . M. . Enbody . E.D. . Irestedt . M. . Elisha . E.B. . Ndithia . H.K. . Tieleman . B.I. . Engelbrecht . D. . Olsson . U. . Rancilhac . L. . Stervander . M. . 2024 . Integrative taxonomy reveals unrecognised species diversity in African Corypha larks (Aves: Alaudidae) . Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society . 200 . 4 . 1080-1108 . 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlad107.
5. Web site: Gill . Frank . Frank Gill (ornithologist) . Donsker . David . Rasmussen . Pamela . Pamela C. Rasmussen . August 2024 . Nicators, Bearded Reedling, larks . IOC World Bird List Version 14.2 . International Ornithologists' Union . 12 September 2024 .