Lazy Cisticola (Cisticola aberrans) [XC876558]
by id from Makhado Local Municipality (near Louis Trichardt), Vhembe District Municipality, Limpopo, South Africa (call)
Lazy Cisticola (Cisticola aberrans) [XC290157]
by Tim Cockcroft from Crystal Springs Mountain Resort, Pilgrim's Rest, Mpumalanga, South Africa (alarm call, song)
Subspecies
Lazy Cisticola (Cisticola aberrans) and Rock-loving Cisticola (Cisticola emini) (Sibley and Monroe 1990, 1993) have been lumped into Cisticola aberrans following Dowsett and Forbes-Watson (1993).
Subspecies from western and eastern Africa south to Angola, eastern Malawi and northern Mozambique sometimes treated as a separate species on basis of spotted tail and narrow habitat preferences, but lurio is intermediate. Affinity of isolated Angolan subspecies bailunduensis uncertain.
Proposed subspecies teitensis (from south-eastern Kenya) synonymized with emini.
The following 8 subspecies are recognised:
admiralis (Smith, 1843) - Locally from southern Mauritania, Guinea and Mali east to Ghana, Togo and northern Benin. Considered by some authors to be a subspecies of Rock-loving Cisticola (Cisticola emini).
petrophilus Alexander, 1907 - Nigeria and Cameroon east to southern Sudan and north-eastern DRCongo, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. Considered by some authors to be a subspecies of Rock-loving Cisticola (Cisticola emini).
bailunduensis Neumann, 1931 - Western Angola. Considered by some authors to be a distinct species, Huambo Cisticola (Cisticola bailunduensis).
emini Reichenow, 1892 - Western, central. Considered by some authors to be a distinct species, Rock-loving Cisticola (Cisticola emini).
nyika Lynes, 1930 - South-western Tanzania, Zambia, western Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique (west of Rift Valley).
lurio Vincent, 1933 - Eastern Malawi and northern Mozambique (east of Rift Valley).
aberrans (Smith, 1843) - South-eastern Botswana and South African plateau.
minor Roberts, 1913 - Coastal plain of southern Mozambique, eastern Swaziland and eastern and south-eastern South Africa.
BirdLife International Species Factsheet