Quelea 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. "Q. quelea" is a major pest to small-grain cereal crops in much of sub-Saharan Africa; the kernels of corn are too big for it. "Q. erythrops" may cause substantial damage to rice. "Q. cardinalis" is not known to raid crops. Quelea Quelea is a genus of small passerine birds
Red-billed quelea "aethiopica". Linnaeus himself did not explain the name "quelea". "Quelea quelea" is locally called "kwelea domo-jekundu" in Swahili, "enzunge" in Kwangali, "chimokoto" in Shona, "inyonyane" in Siswati, "thaha" in Sesotho and "ndzheyana" in the Tsonga language. M.W. Jeffreys suggested that the term came from medieval Latin "qualea", meaning "quail", linking the prodigious numbers of queleas to the hordes of quail that fed the Israelites during the Exodus from Egypt. The subspecies "lathamii" is probably named in honor of the ornithologist John Latham. The name of the subspecies "aethiopica" refers to Ethiopia, and its type was collected in the neighbouring Sennar