Moustached Tinkerbird

About the Moustached Tinkerbird

The moustached tinkerbird (Pogoniulus leucomystax) is a species of bird in the large Piciformes order in the Lybiidae family. It occurs in high-altitude forests in central Africa. It is greenish with little sexual dimorphism. The tinkerbird eats berries and insects.

Older literature often separate the moustached tinkerbird and its close relative, the green tinkerbird, (Pogoniulus simplex) from the rest of Pogoniulus into a separate now-defunct genus, Viridibucco (Oberholser, 1905). "Viridibucco leucomystax" is a commonly encountered taxonomical synonym of the current valid name Pogoniulus leucomystax. The split was supported by their shared overall green coloration and similar lifestyle. In the early 20th century, the two were even considered conspecific.

Some also speculate that the moustached tinkerbird, the green tinkerbird and the western tinkerbird (Pogoniulus coryphaea) are allospecies. On basis of morphological differences, Ripley and Heinrich described a tentative subspecies of Pogoniulus leucomystax. The type specimen of Pogoniulus leucomystax meridionalis (Ripley and Heinrich, 1969) originated... Wikipedia →