Common Fiscal

The southern fiscal or fiscal shrike (Lanius collaris) is a member of the shrike family found through most of southern Africa. It is also sometimes named jackie hangman or butcher bird due to its habit of impaling its prey on acacia thorns to store the food for later consumption. It was previously lumped together with the northern fiscal (Lanius humeralis). Together they were known as the common fiscal. Taxonomy In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the southern fiscal in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected from the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. He used the French name La pie-griesche du Cap de Bonne Espérance and the Latin Lanius capitis Bonae Spei. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson. One of these was the southern fiscal. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the current binomial name Lanius collaris and cited Brisson's work. The specific name collaris is Latin for "of the neck". Five subspecies are recognised. L. c. aridicolus Clancey, 1955 – south western Angola and north western Namibia (dune-fog zone of the Namib Desert) L. c. collaris Linnaeus, 1766 – extreme southern Namibia, southern, central and eastern South Africa, Eswatini, Lesotho, and extreme southern Mozambique (Maputo)(except the south), Zambia, northern Botswana, and possibly also extreme south western Tanzania and extreme north eastern Namibia L. c. marwitzi Reichenow, 1901 Uhehe fiscal – north eastern, central and south eastern Tanzania, northern Malawi L. c. pyrrhostictus Holub & Pelzeln, 1882 – extreme north eastern Botswana (around Basuto), southern Zimbabwe (south of Harare), north eastern and eastern South Africa (Limpopo and Mpumalanga), and south western Mozambique (almost restricted to Gaza province) L. c. subcoronatus A. Smith, 1841 – extreme south east Angola, Namibia (excluding the coastal north west and extreme south), Botswana, south western Zimbabwe, and northern South Africa (south to north western Northern Cape and central Free State)