Yellow-breasted Apalis (Apalis flavida) [XC721231]
by isaac kilusu from Ndlambe Local Municipality (near Emabaleni), Western District, Eastern Cape, South Africa (duet)
Yellow-breasted Apalis (Apalis flavida) [XC200980]
by Rory Nefdt from Mara Siria Camp, Mara Triangle, Kenya (call, song)
Subspecies
Yellow-breasted Apalis (Apalis flavida) and Brown-tailed Apalis (Apalis flavocincta) (Sibley and Monroe 1990, 1993) have been lumped into Apalis flavida following Dowsett and Forbes-Watson (1993).
Possibly belongs to the superspecies formed by Masked Apalis (Apalis binotata) and Black-faced Apalis (Apalis personata). North-eastern African arid-woodland subspecies flavocincta and viridiceps sometimes treated as a separate species, altitudinally segregated from adjacent pugnax and abyssinica (found in more mesic woodlands in highlands) and with different songs and plumage. Similar segregation in Tanzania between coastal neglecta and golzi of the more arid interior, but latter intergrades with pugnax in northern Tanzania and southern Kenya. Has also been suggested that the species should be split on basis of tail length and the width of pale tips of rectrices, but this makes little sense biogeographically.
Other proposed subspecies are renata (southern Mozambique), lucidigula (eastern Northern Province, in northern South Africa), niassae (extreme eastern Angola east to south-western Tanzania) and tenerrima (coast from southern Kenya south to Mozambique), all merged with neglecta; malensis (southern Ethiopia) is synonymized with flavocincta.
The following 9 subspecies are recognised:
caniceps (Cassin, 1859) - Senegambia east to western Kenya and south to northern Angola (Cabinda).
viridiceps Hawker, 1898 - North-western Somalia and adjacent Ethiopia. Considered by some authors to be a distinct species, Brown-tailed Apalis (Apalis flavocincta).
flavocincta (Sharpe, 1882) - Arid and semi-arid areas of south-eastern Sudan, southern Ethiopia, northern Uganda, north-eastern Kenya and southern Somalia. Considered by some authors to be a distinct species, Brown-tailed Apalis (Apalis flavocincta).
pugnax Lawson, 1968 - Kenyan Highlands (where annual rainfall more than 500 mm).
golzi (Fischer, GA & Reichenow, 1884) - South-eastern Kenya (Taita Hills) and Tanzania.
neglecta (Alexander, 1899) - Eastern Angola east to coastal Tanzania (including Zanzibar) and south-eastern Kenya, south to Mozambique, Zimbabwe and northern South Africa.
flavida (Strickland, 1852) - Western and southern Angola, northern Namibia, northern Botswana, south-western Zambia and north-western Zimbabwe.
florisuga (Reichenow, 1898) - South-eastern South Africa (central KwaZulu-Natal south to R Gamtoos).
BirdLife International Species Factsheet