Black butcherbird

The black butcherbird (Melloria quoyi, also known as Cracticus quoyi) is a species of butcherbird in the family Artamidae. It is found in Australia, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forest, subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest, and subtropical or tropical mangrove forest.

Cairns Centenary Lakes - Australia

Black butcherbird
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Artamidae
Genus: Melloria
(Mathews, 1912)
Species:
M. quoyi
Binomial name
Melloria quoyi
(Lesson & Garnot, 1827)
Synonyms

Cracticus quoyi

Evidence was published in a 2013 molecular study which showed that it was the sister taxon to the Australian magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen). The ancestor to the two species is thought to have split from the other butcherbirds between 8.3 and 4.2 million years ago, during the late Miocene to early Pliocene, while the two species themselves diverged sometime during the Pliocene (5.8–3.0 million years ago).[2]

Description

The adult is black all over except for its beak which is black-tipped grey. The juvenile is rufous-brown.[3] As the only butcherbirds with wholly black bodies, they are sometimes confused with crows or currawongs, from which they are distinguished by their gray and hooked bills.[4]

Behavior

In Papua New Guinea, Black butcherbirds have been observed parasitizing the nests of Hooded monarch birds.[5]

In 1903, ornithologist E. M. Cornwall observed brown and black varieties of the bird, the black preferring deeper forest and the brown preferring coastal scrub or mangroves.[6]

References
  1. BirdLife International (2012). "Melloria quoyi". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2012. Retrieved 26 November 2013.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  2. Anna M Kearns; Leo Joseph; Lyn G. Cook (5 December 2012). "A multilocus coalescent analysis of the speciational history of the Australo-Papuan butcherbirds and their allies". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 66 (3): 941–952. doi:10.1016/J.YMPEV.2012.11.020. ISSN 1055-7903. PMID 23219707. Wikidata Q30047358.
  3. Morcombe, Michael (2004). Field guide to Australian birds. Steve Parish Publishing.
  4. Campbell, Iain; Woods, Sam (2013). Wildlife of Australia. Princeton University Press. p. 324. ISBN 9781400846825. Retrieved 17 October 2018.
  5. Chmel, K (2018). "Predation on artificial and natural nests in the lowland rainforest of Papua New Guinea". Bird Study. 65 (1): 114–122. doi:10.1080/00063657.2017.1420751. S2CID 90067582.
  6. Cornwall, EM (1903). "Black butcher-bird". Emu. 3 (1): 58–59. doi:10.1071/MU903055g.


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