Yellow-streaked Greenbul (Phyllastrephus flavostriatus) [XC27958]
by The late Jens O. Svendsen and Louis A. Hansen from Ndundulu, Udzungwa Mts, Iringa Region, Tanzania (call)
Yellow-streaked Greenbul (Phyllastrephus flavostriatus) [XC510313]
by Dawie de Swardt from East Usambara forest and tea plantation area, Tanga, Tanzania (call)
Subspecies
Phyllastrephus alfredi (Sibley and Monroe 1990, 1993) was previously considered as distinct from Phyllastrephus flavostriatus but this treatment is no longer adopted, following a review by Fishpool and Tobias (2005). They pointed out that it is not known to differ vocally from the other subspecies of flavostriatus. Moreover, it shares the rather distinctive foraging habit of the other subspecies, which entirely encircle its range.
Forms a superspecies with Grey-headed Greenbul (Phyllastrephus poliocephalus) and has been considered conspecific by some authors, but is much smaller, differs significantly in plumage characters and has distinctive song. Has been suggested that brown-headed subspecies alfredi merits treatment as full species, but no significant vocal differences from other subspecies. Several poorly differentiated subspecies merged: thus, itombwensis (eastern DRCongo) and ruwenzori (western Uganda) treated as synonyms of olivaceogriseus, and dendrophilus (eastern Zimbabwe), distans (eastern Eastern Cape, in South Africa) and dryobates (Mt Gorongosa, in Mozambique) synonymized with nominate.
The following 8 subspecies are recognised:
olivaceogriseus Reichenow, 1908 - R DRCongo (Ruwenzori Mts, Itombwe and Mt Kabobo), western and south-western Uganda, western Rwanda and northern Burundi.
graueri Neumann, 1908 - Highlands west of L Albert, L Edward and L Kivu, in eastern DRCongo.
kungwensis Moreau, 1941 - Kungwe-Mahari Mts, in western Tanzania.
tenuirostris (Fischer, GA & Reichenow, 1884) - South-eastern Kenya and eastern Tanzania south to eastern Mozambique lowlands (north of R Zambezi).
uzungwensis Jensen & Stuart, 1982 - Eastern escarpment of Udzungwa Mts, in Tanzania.
alfredi (Shelley, 1903) - South-western Tanzania, north-eastern Zambia and northern Malawi. Considered by some authors to be a distinct species, Sharpe's Greenbul (Phyllastrephus alfredi).
vincenti Grant, CHB & Mackworth-Praed, 1940 - South-eastern Malawi (east of R Shire) and adjacent northern Mozambique.
flavostriatus Sharpe, 1876 - Southern Mozambique lowlands (south of R Zambezi), eastern Zimbabwe, north-eastern and eastern South Africa and north-western Swaziland.
BirdLife International Species Factsheet