Proposed subspecies batesi (described from upper R Niger around Mali-Niger border) and quanzae (from western Angola) treated as synonyms of bocagei.
The following 5 subspecies are recognised:
bocagei (Sharpe, 1871) - Southern and eastern Mali, south-western Niger, north-eastern Nigeria, south-western Chad, western and northern Cameroon, northern Central African Republic, eastern PRCongo, western DRCongo, Angola, Zambia (except north-eastern sector), north-eastern Namibia (Caprivi region), northern Botswana (Okavango region) and north-eastern Zimbabwe (R Zambezi west of Victoria Falls).
phoeniceus (Heuglin, 1862) - Southern Sudan, Uganda, eastern DRCongo, Rwanda, Burundi, inland Kenya and Tanzania, south to north-eastern Zambia and Malawi.
traversii (Salvadori, 1888) - Highlands of western and southern Ethiopia.
zanzibaricus (Shelley, 1881) - Southern Somalia southern along coast, including Zanzibar and Pemba, to southern Tanzania.
axillaris (Smith, 1838) - Lowlands of Malawi (except extreme north-east), central and southern Mozambique, Swaziland and eastern South Africa.
BirdLife International Species Factsheet