Hair-crested drongo
Adult in Singapore
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Dicruridae
Genus: Dicrurus
Species:
D. hottentottus
Binomial name
Dicrurus hottentottus
(Linnaeus, 1766)
Synonyms

Corvus hottentottus Linnaeus, 1766

Egg, Collection Museum Wiesbaden

The hair-crested drongo (Dicrurus hottentottus) is an Asian bird of the family Dicruridae. This species was formerly considered conspecific with Dicrurus bracteatus, for which the name "spangled drongo" – formerly used for both – is now usually reserved. Some authorities include the Sumatran drongo (D. sumatranus) in D. hottentottus as subspecies.[2]

It is native from Bangladesh,[1] India, and Bhutan through Indochina to China, Indonesia, and Brunei.[1] Hair-crested drongos move in small flocks and are very noisy. The "spangled drongo", Dicrurus bracteatus, is native on the east coast of Australia and its name is pejorative slang for a silly person. This may be due to its strange chattering and cackling.[3]

Taxonomy

In 1760, French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the hair-crested drongo in his Ornithologie based on a specimen that he mistakenly believed had been collected from the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. He used the French name Le choucas du Cap de Bonne Espérance and the Latin Monedula Capitis Bonae Spei.[4] Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.[5] When in 1766, Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the 12th edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson.[5] One of these was the hair-crested drongo. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Corvus hottentottus and cited Brisson's work.[6] The type locality was subsequently corrected to Chandannagar in West Bengal.[7] The specific name hottentottus is from "Hottentot", a term formerly used for the Khoikhoi, a nomadic pastoral people of southwest Africa.[8] This species is now placed in the genus Dicrurus that was introduced for the drongos by French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1816.[9]

Twelve subspecies are currently recognised, although some have been proposed as separate species:[10][11]

Notes:

  1. ^ a b c d e Proposed as separate species[10][11]
  2. ^ a b It has been proposed to recognise leucops and banggaiensis as a separate species, the white-eyed spangled drongo[10][11]
  3. ^ a b c It has been proposed to recognise faberi, jentincki and termeuleni as a separate species, the Javan spangled drongo.[10][11]

Several other former subspecies are now recognised as separate species or subspecies of other species in the species complex, the Tablas drongo (Dicrurus menagei) and the Palawan drongo (Dicrurus palawanensis, including subspecies cuyensis).

References

  1. ^ a b c BirdLife International (2016). "Dicrurus hottentottus". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2016: e.T103711043A95131033. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T103711043A95131033.en. Retrieved 19 November 2021.
  2. ^ Lepage, Denis (2003). "Spangled Drongo (Dicrurus hottentottus)". Avibase - The World Bird Database. Retrieved 2009-04-10. See also this more specific page.
  3. ^ Complete Book of Australian Birds, Reader's Digest. 1977.
  4. ^ Brisson, Mathurin Jacques (1760). Ornithologie, ou, Méthode contenant la division des oiseaux en ordres, sections, genres, especes & leurs variétés (in French and Latin). Vol. 2. Paris: Jean-Baptiste Bauche. pp. 33–34, Plate 2 fig 2. The two stars (**) at the start of the section indicates that Brisson based his description on the examination of a specimen.
  5. ^ a b Allen, J.A. (1910). "Collation of Brisson's genera of birds with those of Linnaeus". Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. 28: 317–335. hdl:2246/678.
  6. ^ Linnaeus, Carl (1766). Systema naturae : per regna tria natura, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis (in Latin). Vol. 1, Part 1 (12th ed.). Holmiae (Stockholm): Laurentii Salvii. p. 155.
  7. ^ Mayr, Ernst; Greenway, James C. Jr, eds. (1962). Check-list of birds of the world. Vol. 15. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology. p. 152.
  8. ^ Jobling, J.A. (2018). del Hoyo, J.; Elliott, A.; Sargatal, J.; Christie, D.A.; de Juana, E. (eds.). "Key to Scientific Names in Ornithology". Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  9. ^ Vieillot, Louis Pierre (1816). Analyse d'une Nouvelle Ornithologie Élémentaire (in French). Paris: Deterville/self. p. 41.
  10. ^ a b c d Gill, F.; Donsker, D.; Rasmussen, P. (eds.). "IOC World Bird List: Welcome". IOC World Bird List. International Ornithological Congress. Retrieved 31 August 2020.
  11. ^ a b c d Eaton, JA; van Balen, B; Brickle, NW; Rheindt, FE (2016). Birds of the Indonesian Archipelago. Greater Sundas and Wallacea. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.

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