Lybius chaplini
Silhouette: PhyloPic
In 3 days <5% in a week ~10%
Chaplin's barbet (Lybius chaplini) or the Zambian barbet, is a bird species in the family Lybiidae, which was until recently united with the other barbets in the Capitonidae. This bird was named in honor of Sir Francis Drummond Percy Chaplin, a former colonial governor. The species was renamed to emphasize its status as Zambia's only true endemic bird species. It is endemic to South Central Zambia and is restricted to the area between the Upper Kafue River to Kabanga in the Kalomo District. Its natural habitats are moist savanna and arable land. It is threatened by habitat loss. It was formerly classified as a Near Threatened species by the IUCN. But new research has shown it to be rarer than it was believed. Consequently, it is uplisted to Vulnerable status in 2008.
Chaplin's barbet is a small bird species, measuring up to 19 cm (7.5 in) in length with a weight of 64–75 g (2.3–2.6 oz). It is a plump-looking barbet with a large head and a heavy bill with bristles. Its plumage is white with red around the eyes. Its tail is black and the wings are black with yellow on the edges. These birds are usually found in open woodland areas where figs are abundant, which is where... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kafue National Park | 🇿🇲 Zambia |
More parks will be added in future updates.
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Chaplin's Barbet sighting in Kafue National Park on a given day, based on 11 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 329th most-seen of the 338 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to under 5%, and over a week to about 10%, if each day is a fresh chance.
July
In that month about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Chaplin's Barbet in Kafue National Park on a given day, against under 5% in August to June, the lowest months. That is one of Kafue National Park's driest months, with almost no rain against 290 mm in January.
Between 5 and 8 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Chaplin's Barbet sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Only Kafue National Park, in our data
Kafue National Park is the only park on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Chaplin's Barbet sightings: under 5% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
Same genus: Lybius
The closest relatives of the Chaplin's Barbet that you can see in Kafue National Park (genus Lybius, Typical African Barbets) are Black-collared Barbet (about 50%) and Black-Backed Barbet (about 20%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Chaplin's Barbet is recorded against all the birds logged in Kafue National Park (11 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
