NATURAL HISTORY · CATALOGUE RECORD
Somali Courser
Cursorius somalensis Shelley, 1885
Source-backed taxonomic record
Accepted species in Catalogue of Life’s 11 September 2026 base release. This preserves the source classification and available supporting data; it is not a completed species monograph.
Open encyclopedia reference
The Somali courser (Cursorius somalensis) is a wader in the pratincole and courser family Glareolidae, native to eastern Africa in Eritrea, eastern Ethiopia, Somalia, extreme southeast South Sudan, and northern and eastern Kenya. It is unusual among waders in being a bird of open dry country, preferably semi-desert, short grasslands, and burnt grass, where it typically hunts its insect prey by running on the ground.
It is 19–22 cm long, very similar to cream-coloured courser in most characteristics, but differing from it in having a darker, more greyish-brown body colour, and most obviously when in flight, in having only the outer half of the wing black underneath (the whole underwing is black in cream-coloured courser); the inner underwing being the same sandy-brown as the body. Like cream-coloured courser, it has a black stripe and white eyebrow behind its eyes, which when seen from behind look like a "V".
Wikipedia contributors, Somali courser; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T04:08:01.815545+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.
Identity & source status
- Scientific name
- Cursorius somalensis Shelley, 1885
- Name authority
- Shelley, 1885
- Common name
- Somali Courser
- Rank
- species
- Accepted status
- accepted
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Chordata
- Class
- Aves
- Order
- Charadriiformes
- Family
- Glareolidae
- Genus
- Cursorius
- Extinction status
- Recorded extant
Classification family tree
Nested taxonomic groups from the source. This is not a direct-ancestor chain, a dated evolutionary tree or a phylogenetic reconstruction.
- domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
- kingdomAnimalia
- phylumChordata
- subphylumVertebrata
- infraphylumGnathostomata
- parvphylumOsteichthyes
- megaclassTetrapoda
- classAves
- orderCharadriiformes
- familyGlareolidae Brehm, 1831
- genusCursorius Latham, 1790
- speciesCursorius somalensis Shelley, 1885
Close classified relatives
These entries share the source’s genus, Cursorius. They are not necessarily the closest relatives established by molecular evidence.
| Species | Classification | Source status |
|---|---|---|
| Cream-colored CourserCursorius cursor (Latham, 1787) | GlareolidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Temminck's CourserCursorius temminckii Swainson, 1822 | GlareolidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Indian CourserCursorius coromandelicus (J. F. Gmelin, 1789) | GlareolidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
Documented distribution
Source distribution statements, not a complete range map. A listed locality is not necessarily a place of origin.
Source literature & publication evidence
References attached to this source record, including nomenclatural citations where supplied. This is a selected bibliography; abbreviated citations remain in the source’s form.
- https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=824051 Source fields: Taxon.tsv dwc:namePublishedIn, Taxon.tsv dcterms:references
Origins, evidence & remaining research
Name authority and publication references document nomenclature where the source supplies it. They do not establish evolutionary origins or the earliest fossil occurrence.
Specimen-level evidence, morphology, ecological research, phylogenetic studies, a comprehensive bibliography and a located literary passage have not yet been compiled for this record. A suitable sourced image remains to be added.
Dataset citation & attribution
This exact taxon in ChecklistBank · Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11
Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11; dataset 316321; doi:10.48580/dgz5n. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Retrieved 5 October 2026.
Stable key: col:32KMV. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.