West African Pied Hornbill Lophoceros semifasciatus is split from African Pied (now Congo Pied) Hornbill L. fasciatus (Clements 2007:229)

Summary: The West African Pied Hornbill is now considered a separate species from Congo Pied Hornbill. Identification is likely to be a challenge only in south-eastern Nigeria from where hybrids are known.

Details: Originally described as separate species, the Congo Pied Lophoceros fasciatus and West African Pied Hornbill L. semifasciatus differ in bill and tail coloration characters but were found to hybridize in south-eastern Nigeria (Marchant 1953), leading to their long-time treatment as a single species. del Hoyo and Collar (2014) split semifasciatus on the basis of their morphological differences and a “probably broad zone of hybridization in SE Nigeria and SW Cameroon.” Louette (1981), however, found no intergrade specimens in Cameroon, and this together with the evidence from the ML photo archive, suggests there is no more than a narrow hybrid zone. Thus the HBW/BLI split of L. semifasciatus is agreed-upon by WGAC and followed by Clements et al. (2023) and Gill et al. (2023, IOC v.13.2).

English names: The English names adopted are the previously used group names West African Pied Hornbill vs. Congo Pied Hornbill, which aligns with HBW and BirdLife International (2022) and Gill et al. (2023, IOC v.13.2).