The Sri Lanka scimitar babbler or Ceylon scimitar babbler (''Pomatorhinus melanurus'') is an

Old World babbler The Old World babblers or Timaliidae, are a family (biology), family of mostly Old World passerine birds. They are rather diverse in size and coloration, but are characterised by soft, fluffy plumage. These are birds of tropical areas, with the g ...

. It is endemic to the island of

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, ...

and was formerly treated as a subspecies of

Indian scimitar babbler The Indian scimitar babbler (''Pomatorhinus horsfieldii'') is an Old World babbler. It is found in peninsular India in a range of forest habitats. They are most often detected by their distinctive calls, which include an antiphonal duet by a pair ...

. The nominate form is found in the western part of wet hill regions of Sri Lanka, while race ''holdsworthi'' is found in the dry lowlands and eastern hills.

In culture

Most scimitar babbler species are referred as ''parandel kurulla'' by the Sinhala-speaking community. The term 'parandel' refers to dried grass and probably refers to the color of the bird. The

vernacular Vernacular is the ordinary, informal, spoken language, spoken form of language, particularly when perceptual dialectology, perceived as having lower social status or less Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige than standard language, which is mor ...

name of the bird ''parandel kurulla'' roughly translates to English as 'dried-grass-colored bird'. This bird appears in a 4.50

rupee Rupee (, ) is the common name for the currency, currencies of Indian rupee, India, Mauritian rupee, Mauritius, Nepalese rupee, Nepal, Pakistani rupee, Pakistan, Seychellois rupee, Seychelles, and Sri Lankan rupee, Sri Lanka, and of former cu ...

n postal stamp.

References

External links

Internet Bird Collection
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1308974 Sri Lanka scimitar babbler Endemic birds of Sri Lanka Sri Lanka scimitar babbler Sri Lanka scimitar babbler