Red-billed quelea the rear flying over the entire group to a fresh feeding zone at the front, creating an image of a rolling cloud. The conservation status of red-billed quelea is least concern according to the IUCN Red List. The red-billed quelea was one of the many birds described originally by Linnaeus in the landmark 1758 10th edition of his "Systema Naturae". Classifying it in the bunting genus "Emberiza", he gave it the binomial name of "Emberiza quelea". He incorrectly mentioned that it originated in India, probably because ships from the East Indies picked up birds when visiting the African coast during
Red-headed quelea on recent DNA-analysis, the red-headed quelea forms a clade with the cardinal quelea ("Q. cardinalis"), and this clade is sister to the red-billed quelea "Q. quelea". The genus "Quelea" belongs to the group of true weavers (subfamily Ploceinae), and is most related to "Foudia", a genus of six or seven species that occur on the islands of the western Indian ocean. This clade is sister to the Asian species of the genus "Ploceus". The following tree represents current insight of the relationships between the species of "Quelea", and their closest relatives. Red-headed quelea The red-headed quelea ("Quelea erythrops") is a