Cisticola guinea Lynes, 1930

Open encyclopedia reference

Dorst's cisticola (Cisticola guinea), also known as the plaintive cisticola, is a bird in the family Cisticolidae. It occurs in West Africa and south of Lake Chad. Taxonomy and systematics of this bird are quite confusing. The Cisticolidae were formerly included in the "Old World warbler" assemblage and placed in the family Sylviidae. Dorst's cisticola was initially named Cisticola dorsti, hence the common name. The name commemorates the French ornithologist Jean Dorst. Another very similar cisticola had been described some years earlier as a subspecies of the red-pate cisticola (C. ruficeps), and named C. r. guinea. It was eventually discovered that these two taxa were one and the same, and that the song of these birds differs enough from the visually very similar red-pate cisticola for reproductive isolation. Thus, the newly discovered population is usually considered a good species, and the current scientific name is Cisticola guinea, although other taxonomists continue to use dorsti. Its natural habitat is dry savanna.

Wikipedia contributors, Dorst's cisticola; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T13:55:37.093018+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.

Identity & source status

Scientific name

Cisticola guinea Lynes, 1930

Name authority

Lynes, 1930

Rank

species

Accepted status

accepted

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Aves

Order

Passeriformes

Family

Cisticolidae

Genus

Cisticola

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.

1. domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
2. kingdomAnimalia
3. phylumChordata
4. subphylumVertebrata
5. infraphylumGnathostomata
6. parvphylumOsteichthyes
7. megaclassTetrapoda
8. classAves
9. orderPasseriformes
10. familyCisticolidae Sundevall, 1872
11. genusCisticola Kaup, 1829
12. speciesCisticola guinea Lynes, 1930

Close classified relatives

These entries share the source’s genus, Cisticola. They are not necessarily the closest relatives established by molecular evidence.

Browse 120 records assigned to Cisticolidae.

Names & synonyms

Names explicitly linked to this accepted taxon in the source. Synonymy can change with revision.

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.

1. https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=916910 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:5YWF4. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.