| Spotted Creeper | |
|---|---|
| Conservation status | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Passeriformes |
| Family: | Certhiidae |
| Subfamily: | Salpornithinae Mayr & Amadon, 1951 |
| Genus: | Salpornis G.R. Gray, 1847 |
| Species: | S. spilonotus |
| Binomial name | |
| Salpornis spilonotus (Franklin, 1831) |
|
The Spotted Creeper (Salpornis spilonotus) is a small passerine bird, which is the only member of the subfamily Salpornithinae of the treecreeper family Certhiidae. It is found in sub-Saharan Africa and northern India in open deciduous forest and mango groves. It does not migrate other than local movements.
The Spotted Creeper has strongly spotted and barred plumage, clearly different from the treecreepers of the subfamily Certhiinae. It weighs up to 16 grams, twice as much as treecreepers of similar length (up to 15 cm).
The 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, and lichen. In Africa, the clutch is usually of three eggs, which are blue or greenish, marked with grey, lavender, and brown; in India the clutch is usually two eggs, which are greenish or gray, spotted darker brown and blotched pale.
In addition to the treecreeper family, there are two other small bird families with 'treecreeper' or 'creeper' in their name – the Australian treecreepers and the Philippine creepers.