Bocage's Robin
Sheppardia bocagei (Finsch & Hartlaub, 1870)
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.
Bocage's Akalat
Zieger M · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Image sourceProvider-generated thumbnail requested at 800 pixels; no local editing Local WebP display rendition; resized without cropping.
Open encyclopedia reference
Bocage's akalat (Sheppardia bocagei) is a species of bird in the family Muscicapidae. It is found in Angola, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Zambia. Its natural habitats are boreal forests, subtropical or tropical dry forests, subtropical or tropical swamps, and subtropical or tropical moist montane forests.
The common name and Latin binomial commemorate the Portuguese naturalist José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage.
The short-tailed akalat (S. poensis) or Alexander's akalat was formerly considered conspecific, but was split as a distinct species by the IOC in 2021. This species' name commemorates Boyd Alexander, an English ornithologist.
Wikipedia contributors, Bocage's akalat; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T03:54:10.990861+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.
Identity & source status
- Scientific name
- Sheppardia bocagei (Finsch & Hartlaub, 1870)
- Name authority
- (Finsch & Hartlaub, 1870)
- Common name
- Bocage's Robin
- Rank
- species
- Accepted status
- accepted
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Chordata
- Class
- Aves
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Muscicapidae
- Genus
- Sheppardia
- 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
- orderPasseriformes
- familyMuscicapidae Fleming, 1822
- genusSheppardia Haagner, 1909
- speciesSheppardia bocagei (Finsch & Hartlaub, 1870)
Close classified relatives
These entries share the source’s genus, Sheppardia. They are not necessarily the closest relatives established by molecular evidence.
| Species | Classification | Source status |
|---|---|---|
| Gabela AkalatSheppardia gabela (Rand, 1957) | MuscicapidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| East Coast AkalatSheppardia gunningi Haagner, 1909 | MuscicapidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Sharpe's AkalatSheppardia sharpei (Shelley, 1903) | MuscicapidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Sheppardia aurantiithorax Beresford, Fjeldsa & Kiure, 2004 | MuscicapidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Lowland AkalatSheppardia cyornithopsis (Sharpe, 1901) | MuscicapidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Iringa AkalatSheppardia lowei (Grant & Mackworth-Praed, 1941) | MuscicapidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
| Usambara AkalatSheppardia montana (Reichenow, 1907) | MuscicapidaeChordata | Accepted speciesRecorded extant |
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=562984 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.
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:4X4FG. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.