Brown-chested Alethe (Chamaetylas poliocephala)

Other Names (World)
Brown-chested Alethe, Brown-crowned Alethe

Family
Muscicapidae (Old World Flycatchers And Chats)

Size
15 cm

First Described (Guide)
(Bonaparte, 1850)

Habitat
Subtropical and tropical lowland moist forest.

Range (Guide)

Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo [The Democratic Republic of the], Congo [The Democratic Republic of the], C�te dIvoire, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania [United Republic of], Uganda.

Population
Estimated population is unknown (2010).

Status LC
For more information see BirdLife International Species Factsheet.

Voice
Xeno-Canto Sound Files (more (17)...)

Brown-chested Alethe (Chamaetylas poliocephala) [XC739517]
by Oliver Fowler from Semuliki National Park, Bundibugyo, Western Region, Uganda (song)

Brown-chested Alethe (Chamaetylas poliocephala) [XC811073]
by James and David Bradley from Kakamega Forest Reserve, Kenya (call)

Subspecies
May form a superspecies with Red-throated Alethe (Chamaetylas poliophrys), White-chested Alethe (Chamaetylas fuelleborni) and Thyolo Alethe (Chamaetylas choloensis). Considerable confusion regarding type locality and subspecific nomenclature: type locality was claimed to be Bioko, apparently due to misunderstanding. Under such an arrangement the Bioko subspecies was considered nominate poliocephala, while westernmost subspecies bore name castanonota. The type series convincingly shown not to have come from Bioko, but very probably from Ghana, and plumage of syntypes matches skins from there. The type locality thus emended, westernmost subspecies becoming nominate, with Bioko subspecies adopting name compsonota. Described subspecies nandensis (from western Kenya) considered synonomous with carruthersi.

The following 10 subspecies are recognised:

poliocephala (Bonaparte, 1850) - Sierra Leone east to Ghana.
compsonota (Cassin, 1859) - Southern Nigeria, Cameroon and south-western Central African Republic south to north-western Angola, and also Bioko I (Fernando P�o).
hallae (Traylor, 1961) - Western Angola (Quicolungo, Gabela).
giloensis (Cunningham-van Someren & Schifter, 1981) - Southern Sudan.
carruthersi (Ogilvie-Grant, 1906) - South-eastern Central African Republic, north-eastern DRCongo, Uganda and western Kenya.
akeleyae (Dearborn, 1909) - Kenya east of Rift Valley.
vandeweghei (Prigogine, 1984) - Rwanda and Burundi.
kungwensis (Moreau, 1941) - Mt Kungwe, in western Tanzania.
ufipae (Moreau, 1942) - South-eastern DRCongo (Upemba National Park) and south-western Tanzania (Ufipa Plateau).
nandensis Cunningham-van Someren & Schifter, 1981 - Western Kenya (Nandi Hills).

References
See References.

Files:

JPG files for Brown-chested Alethe (Chamaetylas poliocephala) - 10 files

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BirdLife International

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BirdLife International Species Factsheet.

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