It is found in Sub-Saharan Africa where it migrates within the continent, generally arriving and breeding in any one locality during the rainy season.

The juvenile has two colour forms; the grey morph is greyer than the adult with white barring, the underparts being creamy-white with dense dark barring; the hepatic morph is brown rather than grey, the white being replaced by buff or a tawny hue.

[4] The African cuckoo occurs in Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo, DRC, Ivory Coast, Djibouti, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

[1] The birds migrate to West Africa with the arrival of the rainy season, breed there and then depart, although in some localities such as Nigeria, they seem to be present all year round.

The diet consists mainly of both hairy and smooth caterpillars, but also includes other insects such as beetles and winged termites.

[3] Target hosts vary across the range, and the cuckoo's eggs usually closely match in colour and size the eggs of the host species; the yellow-billed shrike (Corvinella corvina) and fork-tailed drongo (Dicrurus adsimilis) are often targeted .