Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jul 27, 2026

Greenbul

The greenbuls are a group of birds within the bulbul family Pycnonotidae, found only within Africa. They are all largely drab olive-green above, and paler below, with few distinguishing features.

Last revised
Jul 27, 2026
Read time
≈ 2 min
Length
444 w
Citations
2
Source
Greenbuls
Sombre greenbul Andropadus importunus
Sombre greenbul Andropadus importunus
Scientific classificationEdit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Pycnonotidae
Genera

See text

The greenbuls are a group of birds within the bulbul family Pycnonotidae, found only within Africa. They are all largely drab olive-green above, and paler below, with few distinguishing features.

The "aberrant greenbuls" of the genera Bernieria and Xanthomixis are actually Malagasy warblers.1 To recognize this, they are also called bernieria and tetrakas rather than greenbuls. Likewise, the golden greenbul is not a typical greenbul, but apparently the representative of a distinct and ancient lineage of bulbuls, which might include the black-collared bulbul.2 A few species within some of the genera in this group are called brownbuls or leafloves.

References

References

  1. Cibois, Alice; Slikas, Beth; Schulenberg, Thomas S.; Pasquet, Eric (2001). "An endemic radiation of Malagasy songbirds is revealed by mitochondrial DNA sequence data" (PDF). Evolution. 55 (6): 1198–1206. doi:10.1554/0014-3820(2001)055[1198:AEROMS]2.0.CO;2. PMID 11475055. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-05-21 – via Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
  2. Moyle, Robert G.; Marks, Ben D. (2006-09-01). "Phylogenetic relationships of the bulbuls (Aves: Pycnonotidae) based on mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequence data". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 40 (3): 687–695. Bibcode:2006MolPE..40..687M. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2006.04.015. ISSN 1055-7903. PMID 16750401.