Blue-mantled crested flycatcher

Blue-mantled crested flycatcher
Female photographed in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Monarchidae
Genus:	Trochocercus
Species:	T. cyanomelas
Binomial name
Trochocercus cyanomelas (Vieillot, 1818)
Subspecies
See text
Synonyms
Muscicapa cyanomelas Terpsiphone cyanomelas

The blue-mantled crested flycatcher or African crested flycatcher (Trochocercus cyanomelas) is a species of bird in the family Monarchidae found in eastern and south-eastern Africa.

Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forests and subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests.

The blue-mantled crested flycatcher was originally described in the genus Muscicapa and some authorities have also classified it in the genus Terpsiphone. Alternate names for the blue-mantled crested flycatcher include blue-mantled flycatcher, blue-mantled paradise-flycatcher, Cape crested-flycatcher and crested flycatcher.

Five subspecies are recognized:^[2]

• T. c. vivax - Neave, 1909: Found from Uganda and north-western Tanzania to south-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and northern and western Zambia
• East African crested flycatcher (T. c. bivittatus) - Reichenow, 1879: Originally described as a separate species. Found from Somalia to eastern Tanzania
• T. c. megalolophus - Swynnerton, 1907: Originally described as a separate species. Found from Malawi and northern Mozambique to Zimbabwe and eastern KwaZulu-Natal (north-eastern South Africa)
• T. c. segregus - Clancey, 1975: Found in eastern Northern Province and western KwaZulu-Natal (north-eastern South Africa)
• T. c. cyanomelas - (Vieillot, 1818): Found in south and south-eastern South Africa

Like all members of the monarch flycatcher family, the blue-mantled crested flycatcher is insectivorous.

• Blue-mantled crested flycatcher - Species text in The Atlas of Southern African Birds.

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