Square-tailed drongo-cuckoo
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The square-tailed drongo-cuckoo (Surniculus lugubris) is a species of cuckoo that resembles a black drongo. It is found along the Himalayas extending east into Southeast Asia. The calls are series of piercing sharp whistles rising in pitch but shrill and choppily delivered.[1] In the past, the species S. lugubris also included the subspecies dicruroides, which is now treated as a separate species, the fork-tailed drongo-cuckoo.
Description
The square-tailed drongo-cuckoo can be easily distinguished by its downcurved beak and the white barred vent and outer undertail, and the tail only notched with slightly flared tips. In flight, a white wing-stripe is visible from below. It is a brood parasite on small babblers. It is not known how or whether the drongo-like appearance benefits this species but it is suspected that it aids in brood-parasitism just as hawk-cuckoos appear like hawks.[2]
The square-tailed drongo-cuckoo was formerly considered conspecific with the fork-tailed drongo-cuckoo (together known as the Asian drongo-cuckoo), but vocal and morphological differences suggested that the species should be split.[1][3]
References
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- ↑ a b Rasmussen, P. C. & Anderton, J. C. 2005 Birds of South Asia. The Ripley Guide. Smithsonian and Lynx Edicions
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- ↑ Fu-Min, Lei & Robert B. Payne (2002) Territorial songs of the drongo cuckoo complex (Surniculus lugubris & S. velutinus). The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 50(1):205-213 PDF
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