GREY CAPPED SOCIAL WEAVER

                       GREY CAPPED SOCIAL WEAVER

The grey-capped social weaver or grey-headed social weaver (Pseudonigrita arnaudi) is a sparrow-like liver-colored bird, with a pale grey crown, a dark grey bill, a whitish eye-ring, horn-colored legs, with some black in the wing and a light terminal band in the tail, that builds roofed nests made of straws, breeds in colonies in thorny Acacia trees, and feeds in groups gathering grass seeds and insects. Male and female have near identical plumage. Recent DNA-analysis confirms it is part of the weaver family. It is found in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda

rench naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte described the grey-capped social weaver as Nigrita arnaudi in 1850.^[2] The species is named in honor of Joseph-Pons d'Arnaud, the French explorer who collected a specimen around 1841 near Juba on the White Nile, and sent it to the French Museum of Natural History. In 1903, German zoologist Anton Reichenow assigned the species to his newly erected genus Pseudonigrita, because he considered P. arnaudi and P. cabanisi related to weaverbirds (Ploceidae), while the other species Nigrita bicolor, N. canicapillus, N. fusconota and N. luteifrons are negrofinches assigned to the estrildid finches.^[3][4]

Ludwig Reichenbach called it Arnauds nigrita in 1863.^[4] "Grey-capped social weaver" has been designated the official name by the International Ornithological Committee(IOC).^[5] Other common names include Masai grey-headed social weaver. In Swahiliit is called korobindo kichwa-kijivu.