Yellow-crowned bishop

The yellow-crowned bishop (Euplectes afer) is a species of passerine bird in the family Ploceidae native to Africa south of the Sahara. It is highly sexually dimorphic in its breeding season, during which the male adopts a distinctive yellow and black plumage, contrasting with the female's predominantly brown coloration. Three subspecies are recognised.

Taxonomy

The yellow-crowned bishop was first described by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in 1789. It and the fire-fronted bishop have occasionally been placed in the separate genus Taha but DNA places it in Euplectes, but with no close relatives. In captivity it has interbred with the northern red bishop. Alternate common names include: Golden bishop, Napoleon bishop, Napoleon weaver, black-winged golden bishop, goudgeelvink (in Afrikaans), Napoleonwever (in Dutch), euplecte vorabé (in French), Napoleonweber (in German), and obispo coronigualdo (in Spanish).

Subspecies

Three subspecies of the yellow-crowned bishop are now recognized.