White-tailed Crested Flycatcher

Open encyclopedia reference

The white-tailed crested flycatcher (Elminia albonotata) is a species of bird in the flycatcher family Stenostiridae. It has a discontinuous distribution in eastern Africa. There are three subspecies, E. a. albonotata of central Kenya, and Uganda through to south west Tanzania; E. a. subvaerulea, which ranges from southern Kenya to Malawi and E. a. swynnertoni of Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The white-tailed crested flycatcher is a small (13 cm) crested flycatcher with a long tail. The wings and crest of are black, the rest of the plumage is grey overall with a white belly, rump and the underside of the tail. The bill is black, the eye dark brown and the legs grey. The call of this species is weak and unstructured. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical evergreen montane forest and surrounding shrubland and bamboo. It is found from 600 m to 1900 m in Tanzania's Udzungwa Mountains, and up to 2700 m elsewhere.

Wikipedia contributors, White-tailed crested flycatcher; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T12:18:40.975685+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.

Identity & source status

Scientific name

Elminia albonotata (Sharpe, 1891)

Name authority

(Sharpe, 1891)

Common name

White-tailed Crested Flycatcher

Rank

species

Accepted status

accepted

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Aves

Order

Passeriformes

Family

Stenostiridae

Genus

Elminia

Extinction status

Recorded extant

Classification family tree

Nested taxonomic groups from the source. This is not a direct-ancestor chain, a dated evolutionary tree or a phylogenetic reconstruction.

1. domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
2. kingdomAnimalia
3. phylumChordata
4. subphylumVertebrata
5. infraphylumGnathostomata
6. parvphylumOsteichthyes
7. megaclassTetrapoda
8. classAves
9. orderPasseriformes
10. familyStenostiridae
11. genusElminia Bonaparte, 1854
12. speciesElminia albonotata (Sharpe, 1891)

Close classified relatives

These entries share the source’s genus, Elminia. They are not necessarily the closest relatives established by molecular evidence.

Browse 9 records assigned to Stenostiridae.

Names & synonyms

Names explicitly linked to this accepted taxon in the source. Synonymy can change with revision.

Documented distribution

Source distribution statements, not a complete range map. A listed locality is not necessarily a place of origin.

Source literature & publication evidence

References attached to this source record, including nomenclatural citations where supplied. This is a selected bibliography; abbreviated citations remain in the source’s form.

1. https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=916768 Source fields: Taxon.tsv dwc:namePublishedIn, Taxon.tsv dcterms:references

Origins, evidence & remaining research

Name authority and publication references document nomenclature where the source supplies it. They do not establish evolutionary origins or the earliest fossil occurrence.

Specimen-level evidence, morphology, ecological research, phylogenetic studies, a comprehensive bibliography and a located literary passage have not yet been compiled for this record.

Dataset citation & attribution

This exact taxon in ChecklistBank · Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11

Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11; dataset 316321; doi:10.48580/dgz5n. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Retrieved 5 October 2026.

Stable key: col:39C37. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.