Orange-breasted waxbill

Orange-breasted waxbill
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Estrildidae
Genus:	Amandava
Species:	A. subflava
Binomial name
Amandava subflava (Vieillot, 1819)
Synonyms
Sporaeginthus subflavus

The orange-breasted waxbill or zebra waxbill (Amandava subflava) is a small (approximately 9 cm long) sparrow-like bird with a reddish iris, orange breast, red bill and dark olive-green plumage. The male has a red rump, dark bars on the whitish flank and a scarlet eyebrow stripe. The female is duller and smaller than male; it also lacks the male's red eyebrow.

The orange-breasted waxbill is found in grassland and savannahs south of the Sahara in Africa. It has an estimated global extent of occurrence of 10,000,000 km². This species is also introduced to other countries, e.g., Kuwait. Its diet consists mainly of seeds, insects and shoots. The female usually lays between four and six eggs in an oval-shaped nest made from grass. These nests are often the old nests of red-collared widowbirds.

Widespread and common throughout its large range, the orange-breasted waxbill is evaluated to be of least concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. It is listed on Appendix III of CITES in Ghana.

• 
  Egg, Collection Museum Wiesbaden
• 
  A male, photographed at Cedara farm, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa

Origin

Origin and phylogeny has been obtained by Antonio Arnaiz-Villena et al. Estrildinae may have originated in India and dispersed thereafter (towards Africa and Pacific Ocean habitats).

External links

• BirdLife International species factsheet
• Species text in The Atlas of Southern African Birds