[2] In 1760, the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the Cape starling in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in Angola.

[6] Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.

[7] 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.

Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Turdus nitens and cited Brisson's work.

In the other countries in its range it is a resident (non-migratory) species and its total extent of occurrence is about 3,000,000 square kilometres (1,200,000 sq mi).

[1] In an observed nest in a thorn tree at the edge of the Kalahari, the chicks were fed predominantly on grasshoppers, locusts, ants and beetles, and were also given fruit, insect larvae and other small invertebrates.