Yellow-bellied Hyliota (Hyliota flavigaster) [XC341505]
by Peter Boesman from Songo, Chemelil District, Kenya (song)
Yellow-bellied Hyliota (Hyliota flavigaster) [XC584712]
by Dries Van de Loock from Kasanka National Park, Zambia (call)
Subspecies
Genus has in the past been placed variously with the Old World flycatchers (in family Muscicapidae), with the monarch-flycatchers (Monarchidae) or with the batises and wattle-eyes (Platysteiridae). Although plumage resembles that of some muscicapid flycatchers of genus Ficedula, and nest is like that of platysteirids, the nestling mouth spots, the unspotted juvenile plumage and behaviour are all typical of present family.
Proposed subspecies marginalis (southern Tanzania and Mozambique) considered inseparable from barbozae.
The following 2 subspecies are recognised:
flavigaster Swainson, 1837 - Gambia south to northern Sierra Leone, east through guinean savanna belt (north to south-western Chad and central Central African Republic, south to western Cameroon and north-eastern DRCongo) to southern Sudan, western Ethiopia, western and southern Uganda and western Kenya.
barbozae Hartlaub, 1883 - South-eastern Gabon and PRCongo, western and north-eastern plateau of Angola, and from western and southern DRCongo (lower R Congo; northern end L Tanganyika south to Kasai and Katanga) and western and south-eastern Tanzania (Ufipa south to Biharamulo; R Rufiji south to Songea) south to Zambia, extreme north-eastern Namibia (eastern Caprivi) and north-west, central and southern Mozambique.
BirdLife International Species Factsheet