Variable Sunbird (Cinnyris venustus) [XC508817]
by Peter Boesman from Kabompo gorge, North-Western province, Zambia (song)
Variable Sunbird (Cinnyris venustus) [XC781862]
by Dries Van de Loock from Freetown, Western Area Urban, Western Area, Sierra Leone (song)
Subspecies
Genus often subsumed in Nectarinia. Has been thought to be closely related to, and possibly forming a superspecies with, Ursula's Sunbird (Cinnyris ursulae).
Other proposed subspecies include blicki (described from southern shore L Stefanie, in south-western Ethiopia), synonymized with albiventris, and sukensis (from R Turkwell, in northern Kenya), merged with fazoqlensis; kuanzae (Malanje, in northern Angola), niassae (Malawi), cyanescens (Zanzibar) and stierlingi (Uhehe, in southern Tanzania) are all treated as synonyms of falkensteini.
The following 5 subspecies are recognised:
venustus (Shaw & Nodder, 1799) - Senegal, Gambia and Sierra Leone east to Nigeria, northern Cameroon and Central African Republic.
fazoqlensis (Heuglin, 1874) - Eastern Sudan, Eritrea and western Ethiopia.
albiventris (Strickland, 1852) - Eastern and southern Ethiopia, Somalia and north-eastern Kenya.
falkensteini Fischer, GA & Reichenow, 1884 - South-eastern Sudan south to western and southern Kenya, and from southern Gabon and western Angola east to southern DRCongo, Tanzania (including Pemba I and Zanzibar), Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
igneiventris Reichenow, 1899 - Eastern DRCongo, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.