Alethe castanea (Cassin, 1856)
Accepted species in Catalogue of Life’s 11 September 2026 base release. This preserves the source classification and available supporting data; it is not a completed species monograph.

Alethe castanea woosnami in Uganda
Tommy Andriollo · CC BY 4.0 · Image sourceProvider-generated thumbnail requested at 800 pixels; no local editing Local WebP display rendition; resized without cropping.
Open encyclopedia reference
The fire-crested alethe (Alethe castanea) is a species of bird in the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae. It is found in central Africa, from Nigeria to Uganda. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests.
It has been recently split from the white-tailed alethe (A. diademata).
Wikipedia contributors, Fire-crested alethe; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T13:48:00.611531+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.
Identity & source status
- Scientific name
- Alethe castanea (Cassin, 1856)
- Name authority
- (Cassin, 1856)
- Rank
- species
- Accepted status
- accepted
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Chordata
- Class
- Aves
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Muscicapidae
- Genus
- Alethe
- 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.
- domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
- kingdomAnimalia
- phylumChordata
- subphylumVertebrata
- infraphylumGnathostomata
- parvphylumOsteichthyes
- megaclassTetrapoda
- classAves
- orderPasseriformes
- familyMuscicapidae Fleming, 1822
- genusAlethe Cassin, 1859
- speciesAlethe castanea (Cassin, 1856)
Close classified relatives
No other member of this genus is present in the selected snapshot.
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.
- https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=558518 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:667PR. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.