Mottled Spinetail (Telacanthura ussheri) [XC124660]
by Louis A. Hansen from Ukami Forest, Udzungwa Mts, Iringa Region, Tanzania (call)
Mottled Spinetail (Telacanthura ussheri) [XC124661]
by id from Ukami Forest, Udzungwa Mts, Iringa Region, Tanzania (call)
Subspecies
Genus formerly merged into Chaetura, or occasionally Rhaphidura. It has been suggested that present species may be better treated as two due to differences in plumage, structure and habitat, though precise situation of dividing line unclear. Proposed subspecies marwitzi of Wemberere steppe, Tanzania, known only from type, and believed to represent aberrant individual of subspecies stictilaema.
The following 4 subspecies are recognised:
ussheri (Sharpe, 1870) - Broken range from Senegambia to Nigeria.
sharpei (Neumann, 1908) - Cameroon to Gabon, and Zaire east to Uganda.
stictilaema (Reichenow, 1879) - Central-eastern Africa, and recently also Zanzibar and Pemba I.
benguellensis (Neumann, 1908) - Western Angola and south-eastern Africa.