Zosterops abyssinicus
The Abyssinian white-eye or white-breasted white-eye is a small passerine bird belonging to the genus Zosterops in the white-eye family Zosteropidae. It is native to north-east Africa and the Southwestern Arabian foothills savanna.

Lip Kee from Singapore, Republic of Singapore · CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- Abyssinian white-eyePBDB
- Sits inside
- ZosteropsPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
- Mass
- 7.8 gWikidata
Time the record covers
At most 12 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.7 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Zosterops abyssinicus on record, most of them in the Holocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
2 occurrences- Holocene100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Zosterops abyssinicus and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Zosterops abyssinicus and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
30 taxa- Apus2 sites
- Chalcomitra balfouri2 sites
- Chamaeleo monachus2 sites
- Ditypophis vivax2 sites
- Emberiza2 sites
- Haemodracon riebeckii2 sites
- Haemodracon trachyrhinus2 sites
- Hypsugo lanzai2 sites
- Lanius excubitor2 sites
- Mus domesticus2 sites
- Oena capensis2 sites
- Oenanthe2 sites
- Passer insularis2 sites
- Rattus norvegicus2 sites
- Rhinolophus clivosus2 sites
- Rhinopoma cystops2 sites
- Rhynchostruthus socotranus2 sites
- Spilopelia senegalensis2 sites
- Suncus madagascariensis2 sites
- Sylviidae2 sites
- Trachylepis socotrana2 sites
- Treron waalia2 sites
- Xerotyphlops socotranus2 sites
- Anas1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Zosterops abyssinicus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
1 referenceEach of the 2 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Zosterops abyssinicus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Lip Kee from Singapore, Republic of Singapore
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Zosterops abyssinicus was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itZosterops through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Guérin-Méneville 1843