The African spotted creeper (''Salpornis salvadori'') is a small

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by t ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

, which is a member of the subfamily Salpornithinae of the

treecreeper The treecreepers are a family, Certhiidae, of small passerine birds, widespread in wooded regions of the Northern Hemisphere and sub-Saharan Africa. The family contains eleven species in two genera, '' Certhia'' and '' Salpornis''. Their plumage ...

family Certhiidae. It is found in sub-Saharan

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

in open deciduous forest and mango groves. It does not migrate other than local movements. The African spotted creeper has strongly spotted and barred plumage, clearly different from the treecreepers of the subfamily Certhiinae. It weighs up to , twice as much as treecreepers of similar length p to The African spotted creeper has a thin pointed down-curved bill, which it uses to extricate insects from bark, but it lacks the stiff tail feathers which the true treecreepers use to support themselves on vertical trees. Its nests and eggs are quite different from those of the Certhiinae. The nest is a cup placed on a horizontal branch, usually in a crotch, and camouflaged with spiders' egg sacs, caterpillar

frass Frass refers loosely to the more or less solid excreta of insects, and to certain other related matter. Definition and etymology ''Frass'' is an informal term and accordingly it is variously used and variously defined. It is derived from the ...

, and

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship. This species and the

Indian spotted creeper The Indian spotted creeper (''Salpornis spilonota'') is a small passerine bird, which is a member of the subfamily Salpornithinae which is placed along with the treecreepers in the family Certhiidae. This small bird has a marbled black and white ...

were formerly considered conspecific and called the spotted creeper. Four distinct populations or subspecies are recognized within the distribution of the African species. The nominate ''salvadori'' described by Bocage in 1878 is found in eastern Uganda, western Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique. Subspecies ''emini'' described by Hartlaub in 1884 is found northwards from west Africa including Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, to Cameroon and Chad in the east. Subspecies ''erlangeri'' described by Neumann in 1907 is restricted to the Ethiopian highlands. Subspecies ''xylodromus'' described by Clancey in 1975 is found in the Zambezi Escarpment, Mashonaland Plateau and adjoining Mozambique. In addition to the treecreeper family, there are two other small bird families with 'treecreeper' or 'creeper' in their name – the

Australian treecreeper There are seven species of Australasian treecreeper in the passerine bird family Climacteridae. They are medium-small, mostly brown birds with patterning on their underparts, and all are endemic to Australia-New Guinea. They resemble, but are no ...

s and the Philippine creepers.

References

External links

* Spotted creeper
Species text in The Atlas of Southern African Birds

Spotted creeper at The Internet Bird Collection.
{{DEFAULTSORT:creeper, spotted, African

African spotted creeper The African spotted creeper (''Salpornis salvadori'') is a small passerine bird, which is a member of the subfamily Salpornithinae of the treecreeper family Certhiidae. It is found in sub-Saharan Africa in open deciduous forest and mango groves ...