The blue-faced malkoha (''Phaenicophaeus viridirostris'') or small green-billed malkoha, is a non-parasitic

cuckoo Cuckoos are birds in the Cuculidae ( ) family, the sole taxon in the order Cuculiformes ( ). The cuckoo family includes the common or European cuckoo, roadrunners, koels, malkohas, couas, coucals, and anis. The coucals and anis are somet ...

found in the scrub and deciduous forests of peninsular

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

and

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

. It has a waxy, dark, blue-grey plumage on its upperparts and has a long tail with graduated white-tipped feathers. The throat and chin are dark with spiny pale feathers that are branched. The lower belly is a dull creamy to rufous colour. The bill is apple green, and a naked patch of blue skin surrounds the eye. The sexes are alike. The blue-faced malkoha is a bird of open forests and scrub jungle.

Description

A largish species at 39 cm, its back and head are dark grey with an oily green or blue gloss, and the dark tail has graduated feathers tipped with white. The belly is pale ochre to grey. The feathers of the chin and throat are branched (unlike in ''

Phaenicophaeus tristis The green-billed malkoha (''Phaenicophaeus tristis'') is a species of non-parasitic cuckoo found throughout Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia. The birds are waxy bluish black with a long graduated tail with white tips to the tail feathers. T ...

'') with the branched tips being pointed and slightly yellowish giving the throat a streaked and spiny appearance. There is a large blue patch around the eye, with a white fringed red iris, and the bill is apple green. The sexes are indistinguishable by external appearance. Birds from Sri Lanka have a broader white tip to the tail feathers. Malkohas are generally very silent but will sometimes produce a low croaky ''kraa'' when flushed. Young birds have dull and non glossy upperparts and some brown feathers in their wing. They nest within a thorny bush, building a thick platform of twigs lined with green leaves and lay a clutch of two, rarely three, chalky white

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the ...

s. The breeding season is somewhat extended and unclear but many nest have been taken from March to August. Two out of 31 specimens trapped in a study were found to have ticks of the genus ''Haemaphysalis spinigera''. Smallgreenbilledmalkoha Gwillim

The blue-faced malkoha takes a variety of

insect Insects (from Latin ') are Hexapoda, hexapod invertebrates of the class (biology), class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (Insect morphology#Head, head, ...

caterpillar Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths). As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder ...

s and small

vertebrate Vertebrates () are animals with a vertebral column (backbone or spine), and a cranium, or skull. The vertebral column surrounds and protects the spinal cord, while the cranium protects the brain. The vertebrates make up the subphylum Vertebra ...

s. It usually forages in the undergrowth.

Taxonomy

The species was described in 1840 by T.C. Jerdon based on a specimen that he collected at the base of

Coonoor Coonoor (), is a taluk and a municipal town of the Nilgiris district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. As of 2011, the town had a population of 45,494. The town sits at the south-east corner of the Nilgiri plateau, and at the head of the Coonoo ...

ghats. He placed it in the genus '' Zanclostomus'' but saw affinities to ''Phaenicophaeus''. A year earlier T.C. Eyton described a species from Malaya that he called ''Phaenicophaeus viridirostris'' but that referred to a female of the already described '' Phaenicophaeus chlorophaeus''. The species is included in the genus ''Phaenicophaeus'' although it was formerly placed in ''Rhopodytes'' as the two genera were separated on the basis of the shape of the nostril, round in ''Rhopodytes'' and slit in ''Phaenicophaeus'' but ''Rhopodytes'' was subsequently subsumed into the older genus name ''Phaenicophaeus''. A study of the aortic arches of birds found that this species has a peculiar modification in the two dorsal carotids are reduced to paired ligaments "ligamenti ottleyi" which enter the hypapophysial canal. The genus is placed in the subfamily Phaenicophaeinae.

Distribution

The blue-faced malkoha is found in peninsular India south of

Baroda Vadodara (), also known as Baroda, is a city situated on the banks of the Vishwamitri River in the Indian state of Gujarat. It serves as the administrative headquarters of the Vadodara district. The city is named for its abundance of banyan ...

(the Surat Dangs) and

Cuttack Cuttack (, or officially Kataka in Odia language, Odia ), is the former capital, deputy capital and the 2nd largest city of the Indian state of Odisha. It is also the headquarters of the Cuttack district. The name of the city is an anglicised f ...

in a range of habitats from semi-evergreen, dry deciduous and open scrub forest. In Sri Lanka it is restricted to the plains. This bird has been recorded in Trichy district of Tamilnadu, india

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q783272 blue-faced malkoha Birds of India Birds of Sri Lanka blue-faced malkoha