Couas are large, mostly

terrestrial Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth, as opposed to extraterrestrial. Terrestrial may also refer to: * Terrestrial animal, an animal that lives on land opposed to living in water, or sometimes an animal that lives on o ...

birds of the

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 ...

family,

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to the island of

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

. Couas are reminiscent of African

turaco The turacos make up the bird family Musophagidae ( "banana-eaters"), which includes '' plantain-eaters'' and '' go-away-birds''. In southern Africa both turacos and go-away-birds are commonly known as loeries. They are semi-zygodactylous: the ...

s when walking along tree branches, and they likewise feature brightly coloured bare skin around the eyes. Some resemble coucals in their habit of clambering through jungle while foraging, while the arboreal species move between tree canopies with gliding flight. Four species have been recorded in

rainforests Rainforests are forests characterized by a closed and continuous tree Canopy (biology), canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforests can be generally classified as tropi ...

while the remaining six are found in the dry forests of western and southern Madagascar. They have large feet, with a reversible third toe like all cuckoos. Their long

tibia The tibia (; : tibiae or tibias), also known as the shinbone or shankbone, is the larger, stronger, and anterior (frontal) of the two Leg bones, bones in the leg below the knee in vertebrates (the other being the fibula, behind and to the outsi ...

suggest a relationship with the '' Carpococcyx'' ground-cuckoos of Asia, a genus with similar nestlings. Consequently, they are sometimes united in the

subfamily In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end botanical subfamily names with "-oideae", and zo ...

''Couinae''. Couas build their own nests and lay white eggs. Couas' calls are a short series of evenly-spaced notes, which are sometimes answered by other individuals.

Taxonomy

The genus ''Coua'' was erected by the Swiss naturalist

Heinrich Rudolf Schinz Heinrich Rudolf Schinz (30 March 1777 – 8 March 1861) was a Swiss people, Swiss physician and natural history, naturalist. Biography Schinz was born in Zürich and studied medicine at the universities of University of Würzburg, Würzburg a ...

in 1821 with the ''Cuculus madagascariensis'' (a synonym of ''Cuculus gigas'') as the

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

. The name is from ''koa'', the Malagasy word for the couas.

Species

There are ten extant species placed in the genus:

Fossils and extinct species

* Ancient coua, ''Coua primaeva'' –

prehistoric Prehistory, also called pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use o ...

* Bertha's coua, ''

Coua berthae Couas are large, mostly terrestrial birds of the cuckoo family, endemic to the island of Madagascar. Couas are reminiscent of African turacos when walking along tree branches, and they likewise feature brightly coloured bare skin around the ey ...

'' – only known from

Holocene The Holocene () is the current geologic time scale, geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene to ...

fossil remainsGoodman & Ravoavy; Smithsonian Institution (1993). ''Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington''. 106. Smithsonian Libraries. ashington : Biological Society of Washington pp. 26–33. * Delalande's coua, or the snail-eating coua ''Coua delalandei'' –

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

(late 19th century)

References

* ''Birds of the Indian Ocean Islands'', Sinclair and Langrand, 1998.

External links

Birds of Madagascar, including Couas
{{Taxonbar, from=Q869407 Bird genera Endemic birds of Madagascar