Mousebirds (Coliidae)

Red-faced Mousebird (Urocolius indicus) - HBW 6, p. 77

French: Coliou quiriva German: Rotzügel-Mausvogel Spanish: Pájaro-ratón Carirrojo
Other common names: Red-faced Coly

Taxonomy: Colius indicus Latham, 1790, India; error = Gamtoos River, Cape Province.
Genus often merged into Colius. Forms a superspecies with U. macrourus. W Angolan population has been separated as race angolensis, but now usually regarded as indistinguishable from lacteifrons; birds from SE Zaire sometimes assigned race lualabae and those of N Botswana race ngamiensis, but both probably better included within mossambicus. Five subspecies currently recognized.

Subspecies and Distribution:

lacteifrons (Sharpe, 1892) - coastal Angola (S from Cabinda) and most of Namibia.
mossambicus (Reichenow, 1896) - extreme SE Zaire and SW Tanzania (around L Rukwa) S to SE Angola (N possibly to E Moxico), Zambia and Malawi.
pallidus (Reichenow, 1896) - coastal areas of extreme SE Tanzania and N Mozambique.

See all 5 subspecies

lacteifrons (Sharpe, 1892) - coastal Angola (S from Cabinda) and most of Namibia.
mossambicus (Reichenow, 1896) - extreme SE Zaire and SW Tanzania (around L Rukwa) S to SE Angola (N possibly to E Moxico), Zambia and Malawi.
pallidus (Reichenow, 1896) - coastal areas of extreme SE Tanzania and N Mozambique.
transvaalensis (Roberts, 1922) - SW Zambia, Zimbabwe and S Mozambique S to South Africa (except S).
indicus (Latham, 1790) - S Cape Province E to R Great Kei.