Green-winged Pytilia (Pytilia melba) [XC266667]
by Guido O. Keijl from Afar Plains, Ethiopia (call)
Green-winged Pytilia (Pytilia melba) [XC93129]
by Andrew Spencer from Babati, Arusha, Tanzania (song)
Subspecies
Was thought possibly to form a superspecies with Yellow-winged Pytilia (Pytilia hypogrammica), but such a relationship not supported by molecular analysis. Has been suggested that red-lored citerior and grey-lored percivali represent two different species, but red-lored and grey-lored males intergrade across eastern Africa, and many intermediates occur. Subspecies soudanensis intergrades with citerior in southern Sudan, with jessei in Djibouti and with grotei in north-eastern Tanzania.
Proposed subspecies clanceyi (described from Bahr el Ghazal, in Sudan) treated as a synonym of citerior; damarensis (from Windhoek, in western Namibia) and thamnophila (from Big Bend, on R Great Usutu, in eastern Swaziland) synonymized with nominate. A population in Djibouti with much yellow in plumage named as subspecies flavicaudata (but no museum specimen), and apparently identical birds occur in northern South Africa (Northern Cape Province), both possibly variants or additional subspecies. A yellowish bird from Northern Cape appears to be a leucistic individual of nominate subspecies, having mitochondrial sequence identical to that of others of this species in the region. Further study is required.
The following 9 subspecies are recognised:
citerior Strickland, 1853 - Southern Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali and northern Ivory Coast east to northern Nigeria, Chad and southern Sudan (west of R Nile).
soudanensis (Sharpe, 1890) - Southern and south-eastern Sudan, southern and eastern Ethiopia, Djibouti, Uganda, and northern and eastern Kenya south to northern Tanzania.
belli Ogilvie-Grant, 1907 - Western Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, eastern DRCongo (Kivu) and western Tanzania.
percivali van Someren, 1919 - Central and south-western Kenya and northern Tanzania.
grotei Reichenow, 1919 - North-eastern Tanzania south to lower R Zambezi and southern Malawi.
melba (Linnaeus, 1758) - Southern PRCongo, western and south-eastern DRCongo, Angola, Zambia (except north) and south-western Tanzania south to central Namibia, southern Botswana, Zimbabwe, southern Mozambique, northern South Africa and eastern Swaziland.
BirdLife International Species Factsheet