The Canary Islands Chiffchaff (Phylloscopus canariensis) is a species of leaf warbler endemic to the Canary Islands, Spain.
Taxonomy
Previously the Canary Island Chiffchaff was considered as a subspecies of the Common Chiffchaff (Phylloscopus collybita). Now it is recognised as a separate species under the name Phylloscopus canariensis (Clement & Helbig, 1998; Sangster et al., 2001) for the following reasons (compared to the Common Chiffchaff) (Helbig et al., 1996):
- Smaller in size
- Shorter wings
- Wings rounder
- Vocalizations different
- mtDNA sequence divergence
Subspecies
- Western Canary Islands Chiffchaff: Western Canary Islands: El Hierro, La Palma, La Gomera, Tenerife, and Gran Canaria.
- Eastern Canary Islands Chiffchaff: Eastern Canary Islands: Lanzarote and possibly Fuerteventura.