Yellow-crowned Bishop (Euplectes afer) [XC280285]
by Peter Boesman from brazo del este, sevilla, andaluc\u00eda, South Africa (call)
Yellow-crowned Bishop (Euplectes afer) [XC580540]
by Oliver Fowler from Carreira, Leiria, Leiria, Portugal (call)
Subspecies
This species and Fire-fronted Bishop (Euplectes diadematus) have sometimes been placed in a separate genus, Taha, and considered to form a superspecies, but molecular data suggest that present species occupies a basal position within current genus, without close relatives. Has hybridized with Northern Red Bishop (Euplectes franciscanus) in captivity.
Proposed subspecies ladoensis (described from southern Sudan) subsumed in taha; validity of niassensis, description of which based on a single female (from Mitomoni, in southern Tanzania), uncertain, as specimen not now available.
The following 4 subspecies are recognised:
afer (Gmelin, 1789) - Southern Mauritania, Gambia, coastal regions of Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Sierra Leone, north-eastern Ivory Coast, riverine areas of Mali, Burkina Faso, northern parts of Ghana, Togo and Benin, south-western Niger, northern and central Nigeria, north, central and western Cameroon, northern Central African Republic, western Sudan and Nile Valley, south to PRCongo along rivers, northern DRCongo, and western Angola (Luanda region); sporadic records from Liberia, Chad, Gabon and Uganda.
strictus Hartlaub, 1857 - Highland plateau of central Ethiopia.
taha Smith, A, 1836 - Southern Sudan, southern Somalia, western Kenya, central Tanzania, south-eastern DRCongo, southern Angola, south-western and northern Zambia, northern Namibia, northern and eastern Botswana, western Zimbabwe, eastern South Africa and Lesotho lowlands; occasional records from Swaziland and Mozambique.
ladoensis Reichenow, 1885 - Southern Sudan and south-western Ethiopia to northern Tanzania.
BirdLife International Species Factsheet