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17 June 2019 Two undescribed species of bird from West Africa
Peter Boesman, N. J. Collar
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Abstract

Taxonomically undifferentiated western and eastern populations of Dusky Long-tailed Cuckoo Cercococcyx mechowi and Yellow-spotted Barbet Buccanodon duchaillui are known to have very different voices. The cuckoo has two song types, a melodious three-note whistle and a plaintive whinnying in West Africa west of the Bakossi Mountains in Cameroon, and a much less melodious, higher-pitched three-note whistle and a much faster whinnying in Central Africa east of the Bakossi Mountains. The barbet has an accelerating song of some 6–11 hoots west of the Dahomey Gap and a rapid rolling purr to the east. Even though in plumage and morphometrics there is no unambiguous diagnostic distinction between these two vocal groups, analysis of their vocalisations demonstrates a high degree of differentiation. We consider the western groups as species, naming the cuckoo for Françoise Dowsett-Lemaire and the barbet for Robert Dowsett.

© 2019 The Authors; This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Peter Boesman and N. J. Collar "Two undescribed species of bird from West Africa," Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club 139(2), 147-159, (17 June 2019). https://doi.org/10.25226/bboc.v139i2.2019.a7
Received: 21 December 2018; Published: 17 June 2019
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