Highland lark
Species of bird
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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).
| Highland lark | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Passeriformes |
| Family: | Alaudidae |
| Genus: | Corypha |
| Species: | C. kurrae |
| Binomial name | |
| Corypha kurrae (Lynes, 1923) | |
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]
