Talk:Ploceus victoriae

There seems to be some doubt as to the validity of this species

Ploceus victoriae was described by Ash (1986) but now considered likely to be a hybrid between Ploceus castanops and P. melanocephalus (Louette 1987, Dowsett and Dowsett-Lemaire 1993, Craig 2004 and Carswell et al. 2005). BirdLife International (2009) Species factsheet: Ploceus melanocephalus. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 21/7/2009.

The small breeding population of Northern Masked Weavers Ploceus taeniopterus reported from the shores of Lake Bunyoni in Bull. ABC 12: 73 are in fact Victoria Masked Weavers Ploceus victoriae described by John Ash in 1986; this form is now suspected to be a hybrid between Northern Brown-throated P. castanops and Black-headed P. melanocephalus or Golden-backed Weavers P. jacksoni (cf. Birds of Africa 2004). http://www.africanbirdclub.org/countries/Uganda/news.html