This estrildid finch is a common resident breeding bird in dry savanna habitat, south of the Sahara Desert.

The African silverbill was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin under the binomial name Loxia cantans.

[4] Gmemlin specified the locality as Africa but this was restricted to Dakar in Senegal by William Lutley Sclater and Cyril Mackworth-Praed in 1918.

He discovered that although the call notes were similar, the songs are distinctly different in form, but sharing a common pattern.

[10] A molecular phylogenetic study of the Estrildidae published in 2020 found that the African and Indian silverbills were sister species that had diverged around one million years ago.

[11] Two subspecies are recognised:[8] The African silverbill is approximately 10 cm (3.9 in) in length with a long black pointed tail.

The African silverbill is tame and sociable, often found perching in trees in dense flocks, touching one another.

At once he sleeks down his feathers, stands upright with tail straight down, and jerks his head upwards a few times.

The male is recorded in the wild as collecting all the nesting material (Meinertzhagen 1954), while the female only shares in construction.

The plate has a single heavy black circle inside the white mouth flange, which embraces the upper and lower parts of the gape.