Streaky-headed Seedeater

About the Streaky-headed Seedeater

The streaky-headed seedeater or streaky-headed canary (Crithagra gularis) is a small passerine bird in the finch family. It is an unobtrusive but widespread species in suitable habitats of southern Africa. Its presence in an area is revealed foremost by its callnotes.

The streaky-headed seedeater was formerly placed in the genus Serinus but phylogenetic analysis using mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences found that the genus was polyphyletic. The genus was therefore split and a number of species including the streaky-headed seedeater were moved to the resurrected genus Crithagra.

There are five recognized subspecies, differing mainly in the colour shade of the upperparts and underparts. C. g. humilis of the southwestern Cape has dusky plumage and indistinctly streaked upperparts. Crithagra gularis benguellensis (Reichenow, 1904) — n Namibia, s Angola

Crithagra gularis endemion (Clancey, 1952) — Lesotho, Eswatini, e South Africa, s Mozambique Crithagra gularis gularis (Smith, A, 1836) — n South Africa, sw Botswana, s Zimbabwe Crithagra gularis humilis (Bonaparte, 1850) — s South Africa

Crithagra gularis mendosa (Clancey, 1966) — nw Botswana, Zimbabwe, c Mozambique... Wikipedia →