Other Scientific Names
Tchagra senegala [BirdLife International (2004)], Tchagra senegala [Cramp and Simmons (1977-1994)], Tchagra senegala [Dowsett and Forbes-Watson (1993)], Tchagra senegala [Sibley and Monroe (1990, 1993)]
Black-crowned Tchagra (Tchagra senegalus) [XC890658]
by Marc Anderson from Kafue National Park, Zambia (song)
Black-crowned Tchagra (Tchagra senegalus) [XC890659]
by id from Kafue National Park, Zambia (song)
Subspecies
Closely allied with the "Brown-crowned Tchagra (Tchagra australis) superspecies", yet completely sympatric with it. Subspecies remigialis intergrades with nothus around L Chad. Some geographical variation trivial and clinal; subspecies warsangliensis sometimes subsumed in habessinicus.
At least 17 subspecies have been described; pallidus synonymized with nominate and timbuktanus with nothus, also camerunensis, sudanensis and rufofuscus subsumed in armenus, and mozambicus and confusus in orientalis.
The following 10 subspecies are recognised:
cucullatus (Temminck, 1840) - Morocco east to northern Tunisia and north-western Libya.
senegalus (Linnaeus, 1766) - Southern Mauritania south to Liberia, east to southern Mali (southern from Mopti), Nigeria (except far north), southern Chad and Central African Republic.
nothus (Reichenow, 1920) - Borders of Sahara from central Mali east to L Chad.
remigialis (Hartlaub & Finsch, 1870) - L Chad east to western and central Sudan (Darfur, Kordofan and central Nile Valley).
armenus (Oberholser, 1906) - Southern Cameroon east to northern DRCongo, south-western Sudan (Bahr el Ghazal) and Uganda, southern in west to Angola (south to western and central Huíla and Cuando Cubango) and, in east, to Kenya (except coast), Tanzania (except eastern lowlands), northern Zimbabwe, Malawi and north-western Mozambique.
habessinicus (Hemprich & Ehrenberg, 1833) - Southern Sudan (eastern from Imatong Mts), Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and north-western Somalia.
percivali (Ogilvie-Grant, 1900) - South-western Saudi Arabia, western and eastern Yemen and southern Oman.
warsangliensis S. R. Clarke, 1919 - Warsangli area of northern Somalia.
kalahari (Roberts, 1932) - Southern Angola (eastern Huíla east to south-eastern Cuando Cubango), northern Namibia, south-western Zambia, Botswana, north-western Zimbabwe, and northern South Africa (North West Province and western Limpopo).
orientalis (Cabanis, 1869) - Southern Somalia, coastal Kenya, eastern Tanzanian lowlands, Mozambique (except Tete region), Zimbabwe (except northern and north-west), north-eastern and eastern South Africa and Swaziland.
BirdLife International Species Factsheet