The rufous vanga (Schetba rufa) is a species of bird in the family Vangidae. It is monotypic within the genus Schetba.[2] It is endemic to Madagascar, where its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forest and subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest.[1]
In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the rufous vanga in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected on the island of Madagascar. He used the French name La pie-griesche rousse de Madagascar and the Latin Lanius Madagascariensis rufus.[3] Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.[4] 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.[4] One of these was the rufous vanga. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Lanius rufus and cited Brisson's work.[5] The rufous vanga is now the only species placed in the genus Schetba that was introduced by the French naturalist René Lesson in 1831.[6]