African Grey Woodpecker (Dendropicos goertae) [XC121048]
by peter stronach from Ngo-Ketunjia, Northwest, Cameroon (call)
African Grey Woodpecker (Dendropicos goertae) [XC810952]
by GABRIEL LEITE from West Kanyada (near Rodi Kopany), Asego, Homa Bay County, Kenya (song)
Subspecies
Dendropicos goertae and Dendropicos spodocephalus (Sibley and Monroe 1990, 1993) have been lumped and transferred to the genus Mesopicos following Dowsett and Forbes-Watson (1993).
Forms a superspecies with Grey-headed Woodpecker (Dendropicos spodocephalus) and Olive Woodpecker (Dendropicos griseocephalus), hybridizing with them where ranges meet. Often treated as conspecific with Grey-headed Woodpecker (Dendropicos spodocephalus). Subspecies intergrade.
Proposed subspecies agmen (tree-savanna belt from Gambia south to Liberia and across to east-central Sudan), centralis (savanna from Cameroon to south-western Sudan and western Kenya) and oreites (highlands of central Cameroon) all considered inseparable from nominate.
The following 5 subspecies are recognised:
koenigi (Neumann, 1903) - Sahel zone from east-central Mali east to western and southern Sudan.
goertae (P. L. S. Müller, 1776) - South-western Mauritania and Senegambia east to southern Sudan and western and central Kenya, and south to north-eastern Zaire, Rwanda and north-western Tanzania.
abessinicus (Reichenow, 1900) - Eastern Sudan and northern and western Ethiopia.
meridionalis Louette & Prigogine, 1982 - Southern Gabon to north-western Angola (Cabinda, possibly south to Malanje), and south-central Zaire.
centralis (Reichenow, 1900) - Eastern Angola east to western Tanzania, south to northern Namibia and Zambia.