Thick-billed Honeyguide (Indicator conirostris) [XC824193]
by Deville Tanguy from Lompole, Bandundu, Mai-Ndombe, Congo (Democratic Republic) (song)
Thick-billed Honeyguide (Indicator conirostris) [XC396434]
by Bram Piot from Nykaweri Forest, Narok County, Kenya (song)
Nest
None. Lays eggs in the nest of other species, including that of Grey-throated Barbet (Gymnobucco bonapartei).
Subspecies
Lesser Honeyguide (Indicator minor) and Thick-billed Honeyguide (Indicator conirostris) (Sibley and Monroe 1990, 1993) have been lumped into Indicator minor following Dowsett and Forbes-Watson (1993). Not recognised as a species by BirdLife International.
Forms a superspecies with Lesser Honeyguide (Indicator minor), and they have often been merged, but they occur together in western Uganda without interbreeding. They may interbreed in Nigeria, but are so similar in appearance that hybrids are difficult to establish. Supposedly paler form, described as subspecies pallidus, considered in part variant of nominate, although some pallidus treated as synonymous with subspecies senegalensis of Lesser Honeyguide (Indicator minor).
The following 2 subspecies are recognised:
conirostris (Cassin, 1856) - Southern Nigeria east to southern Central African Republic and western Kenya, southern patchily to northern Angola and southern and central-eastern Zaire.
ussheri Sharpe, 1902 - South-eastern Sierra Leone disjunctly east to southern Ghana.
BirdLife International Species Factsheet