Spotted creepers | Salpornithidae

Gevlekte boomkruipers | Trepadores moteados

A family with a single genus, represented in Africa by one species, the African Spotted Creeper. The plumage is dark brown, densely spotted and barred with white and buff, and vanishes against rough bark. The bill is slender and distinctly decurved. The bird climbs trunks in a spiral, prising insects, spiders and larvae from bark crevices, then drops to the base of the next tree. In this it closely recalls the Eurasian treecreepers (Certhia), but it lacks their stiffened, supporting tail: its tail is soft and not braced against the trunk. The resemblance is largely convergent. Molecular studies place Salpornis in the same broad group as treecreepers, nuthatches and wrens, but as a separate, ancient lineage outside the true treecreepers (Certhiidae). It is quiet and unobtrusive, alone or in pairs, sometimes joining mixed foraging flocks, in open miombo and other dry woodland and wooded savanna. The nest is a small cup in a horizontal branch fork, camouflaged with flakes of bark, lichen and spider silk.