White-bellied Kingfisher

Open encyclopedia reference

The white-bellied kingfisher (Corythornis leucogaster) is a species of kingfisher in the subfamily Alcedininae that occurs in Mali and throughout the African tropical rainforest. The first formal description of the species was by the British zoologist Louis Fraser in 1843 under the binomial name Halcyon leucogaster.

There are three subspecies:

Corythornis leucogaster bowdleri (Neumann, 1908) – far north-eastern Guinea, Mali and Upper Guinean forests

Corythornis leucogaster leucogaster (Fraser, 1843) – Nigeria to north west Angola, Bioko Island

Corythornis leucogaster leopoldi (Dubois, AJC, 1905) – east Congo to south Uganda and northwest Zambia

The white-bellied kingfisher is 13 cm (5.1 in) in length with a weight of around 14.5 g (0.51 oz). It has ultramarine upperparts and a red bill. The underparts are rufous-chestnut apart from a central white band. The sexes are alike.

Wikipedia contributors, White-bellied kingfisher; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T08:01:11.770738+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.

Identity & source status

Scientific name

Corythornis leucogaster (Fraser, 1843)

Name authority

(Fraser, 1843)

Common name

White-bellied Kingfisher

Rank

species

Accepted status

accepted

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Aves

Order

Coraciiformes

Family

Alcedinidae

Genus

Corythornis

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. orderCoraciiformes
10. familyAlcedinidae
11. subfamilyAlcedininae
12. genusCorythornis Kaup, 1848
13. speciesCorythornis leucogaster (Fraser, 1843)

Close classified relatives

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

Browse 77 records assigned to Alcedinidae.

Names & synonyms

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

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.

1. https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=1174571 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:8VDSD. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.