Crested Barbet (Trachyphonus vaillantii) [XC347117]
by Lynette Rudman from Shakawe River Lodge area, Botswana (song)
Crested Barbet (Trachyphonus vaillantii) [XC280776]
by Peter Boesman from Zaagkuildrift road to Kgomo-Kgomo, Gauteng, South Africa (song)
Subspecies
Forms a link between forest-dwelling Yellow-billed Barbet (Trachyphonus purpuratus) and typical ground barbets such as group including Red-and-yellow Barbet (Trachyphonus erythrocephalus) and D'Arnaud's Barbet (Trachyphonus darnaudii), being intermediate in bill morphology and some plumage features. Racial differentiation difficult to evaluate, owing to mosaic evolution (correlated with rainfall, birds being paler in more xeric areas) and individual variation.
Proposed subspecies nobilis, known from single specimen from Botswana, now included within nominate.
The following 2 subspecies are recognised:
suahelicus Reichenow, 1887 - Central Angola, southern and eastern Zaire and south-western Uganda to northern Tanzania, south to Zambia, northern Zimbabwe, Malawi and central Mozambique.
vaillantii Ranzani, 1821 - Southern Angola, north-eastern Namibia, northern and eastern Botswana, southern Zimbabwe, and from southern Mozambique south to eastern South Africa.
BirdLife International Species Factsheet