Vertebrate Zoology 60(2): 163-170, doi:
Intraspecific differentiation in Spotted Creepers, Salpornis spilonotus (Aves: Passeriformes: Certhiidae)
expand article infoThomas Tietze‡, Jochen Martens§
‡ Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany§ Universität Mainz, Mainz, Germany

Corresponding author: Thomas Tietze ( mail@dieterthomastietze.de )

© Thomas Tietze, Jochen Martens.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation: Tietze T, Martens J (2010) Intraspecific differentiation in Spotted Creepers, Salpornis spilonotus (Aves: Passeriformes: Certhiidae). Vertebrate Zoology 60(2): 163-170
Open Access
Abstract
Spotted Creepers (Salpornis spilonotus) occur in Africa and India. They are scarcely distributed in openly forested areas and little is known about them. The fi ve currently accepted subspecies differ clearly from each other in morphological dimensions and vocal characters. Genetic divergence between the Indian and the single genetically investigated African subspecies is immense. Consequently, we propose to treat African and Indian populations as separate species, Salpornis salvadori and Salpornis spilonotus. This intercontinental split is corroborated by our morphometric data.
Keywords
Salpornis, systematics, morphometric analysis, vocalizations.