Lesser Blue-eared Starling (Lamprotornis chloropterus) [XC718079]
by Andrew Spencer from Simandou, Guinea (call)
Lesser Blue-eared Starling (Lamprotornis chloropterus) [XC210342]
by Andrew Spencer from Gambela, trail from the Metu road to the Baro River, Ethiopia (call)
Subspecies
Lesser Blue-eared Glossy-Starling (Lamprotornis chloropterus) and Miombo Blue-eared Starling (Lamprotornis elisabeth) (Sibley and Monroe 1990, 1993) are retained as separate species contra Dowsett and Forbes-Watson (1993) who include elisabeth as a subspecies of Lesser Blue-eared Glossy-Starling (Lamprotornis chloropterus). This treatment is under review by the BirdLife Taxonomic Working Group.
May form a superspecies with Sharp-tailed Starling (Lamprotornis acuticaudus). Subspecies sometimes treated as two distinct species, forming a superspecies.
Proposed subspecies cyanogenys (described from Sennar, in Sudan) is regarded as a synonym of nominate.
The following 2 subspecies are recognised:
chloropterus Swainson, 1838 - Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, northern Sierra Leone, Mali and Ivory Coast east to southern Chad, Central African Republic, southern Sudan, western Ethiopia, Eritrea, northern Uganda and north-western Kenya.
elisabeth (Stresemann, 1924) - Southern Kenya to northern Botswana and Zimbabwe.