Chorister Robin-Chat

The chorister robin-chat (Cossypha dichroa) (previously known as the chorister robin) is a species of bird in the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae. It is found in South Africa and Eswatini. Its distribution stretches from the southern Western Cape through the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, and Mpumalanga to northern Limpopo. Its natural habitat is evergreen forests, especially in the mist belt region. == Taxonomy == The chorister robin-chat 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 flycatchers in the genus Muscicapa and coined the binomial name Muscicapa dichroa. Gmelin specified the locality as South Africa. This was restricted to Knysna in Western Cape province by Phillip Clancey in 1966. Gmelin based his account on the "Muscicapa bicolor" that had been described and illustrated in 1787 by the Swedish naturalist Anders Sparrman. The hand-coloured engraved plate had been drawn by Jonas Carl Linnerhielm. The combination Muscicapa bicolor had been previously introduced in 1783 by the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert for a different taxon and therefore under the rules of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature Muscicapa bicolor Sparrman, 1787 is a junior…