Drongos

(Dicruridae)

Class Aves

Order Passeriformes

Suborder Passeri (Oscines)

Family Dicruridae

Thumbnail description
Glossy black, fork-tailed, starling-sized songbirds that live in trees and hawk for insect food from vantage perches

Size
7–25 in (18–63 cm), including tail; 0.8–4.8 oz (25–135 g)

Number of genera, species
2 genera; about 22–24 species

Habitat
Tropical and subtropical forest to forest edge, open woodland, and gardens

Conservation status
Endangered: 2 species; Near Threatened: 4 species

Distribution
Old World tropics and subtropics, from sub-Saharan Africa to southern Asia southeast through Indonesian archipelagos to Solomon Islands and Australia

Evolution and systematics

Long thought to be related to starlings and orioles, the drongos have been shown by recent molecular and skeletal research to be nested among the Australasian monarch flycatchers (family Monarchidae) and related to corvoid songbirds. Unlike starlings but like monarchs, they have a single pneumatized fossa in the head of the humerus; and like monarchs but unlike orioles, they have a heavily ossified nasal cavity and narrow ectethmoidal plate. To manhandle large and hard-cased insect food, they also have an extended bony plate in the roof of the palate, thickened nasal bars, and a large depression in each temple flanked by a long zygomatic process for the attachment of powerful jaw muscles; drongos are strong-billed birds. Outwardly, monarchs also match drongos in their glossy black plumages, arboreal hawking behavior, flimsy nests perched in horizontal tree forks, and reddish-marked eggs.

The drongo-monarch group is a core branch in a massive radiation of crow-like songbirds that appears to have exploded in Australia some 20–30 million years ago, and quickly spread through the Old World tropics. The drongo lineage would have been in the vanguard, reaching Africa and radiating into 11–13 species in Southeast Asia and fringing archipelagos. Left behind in montane New Guinea, signposting the source of radiation as it were, was the pygmy drongo (Chaetorhynchus papuensis), the most monarch-like and ancestrally structured drongo of all. The fossil record, limited to the Pleistocene for drongos, preserves little of this information.

Today there are 22–24 species of drongos, one in the genus Chaetorhynchus and the rest in the larger but still tight-knit genus Dicrurus. Only the taxonomy of the balicassius-hottentotottus species-group in the Indo-Australasian archipelagos is seriously controversial, opinions being divided over whether there are anywhere from four to eight species in the 36 taxon complex.

Physical characteristics

Resembling stream-lined, long-tailed starlings, drongos are a picture in black—black in plumage, bill, and feet—except for the gray ashy drongo (D. leucophaeus) in Southeast Asia; immatures are duller and sootier, and in some species faintly scalloped, barred, or spotted paler. Eyes, brilliant red in most species (though whitish or brown in some forms), provide the only color contrast; immatures are brown-eyed without exception. Plumage is extensively glossed in green, blue, or purplish sheens, the gloss sometimes spangling hackles on head and breast. Some species are also crested. Crests vary, according to species, from a short tuft of erect feathers on the forehead to bare hair-like plumes or a mane of broadened curled feathers curving back over the head.

Bills are stout, deep, and rather aquiline, well-notched for grasping prey, and clothed with dense, forward-directed bristles at the base. The bristles, which hide slit-like nostrils, are thought to protect the face from retaliation by captured prey; in Chaetorhynchus they extend to the bill tip. Feet are short but

strong, and with the toes about as long as the scutellate "leg," are better fitted for perching than movement. Adapted for aerial maneuvers, wings are rather long and pointed, with 10 primaries (tenth well-developed) and nine secondaries plus a remicle. It is the tail that sets drongos apart from other songbirds. Sometimes square-tipped but usually long and forked, it comprises 12 feathers in Chaetorhynchus and only 10 in Dicrurus, and is often diversely modified by a great lengthening and curling of the outermost pair of feathers. In two species, these plumes are largely bare of webbing except for spatula-like tips; but the function of such modification is not clear. Tails in all species are at least as long as the body, and up to three times as long, even more, in some. Because of this, drongos vary enormously in length, from 7 in to over 23.5 in (18–60 cm).

Distribution

Drongos occur throughout the Old World tropics and subtropics: there are four species in tropical and subtropical sub-Saharan Africa, four in Madagascar and nearby island archipelagos, 11–13 centered in southern and Southeast Asia, from east Iran and India to south Manchuria (Bol Hai), the Philippines and central Indonesian archipelagos, and just four (possibly five) from the east Indonesian Archipelagos to the Solomon Islands and north and east Australia. Most species are sedentary, but populations of those that breed in more temperate latitudes, of the black drongo (Dicrurus macrocercus), ashy drongo, and hair-crested drongo (D. hottentottus) in China, and the spangled drongo (D. bracteatus) in east Australia, are migratory, shifting to the tropics in winter.

Habitat

Tropical and subtropical forests, secondary growth, and forest edge to mangroves, open woodlands, and even urban environs are the habitat of drongos, according to species. Some, such as the New Guinean pygmy drongo, the African shining drongo (D. atripennis), and Sulawesi drongo (D. montanus) are confined to primary rainforest; but others, notably the widespread Asian black drongo, occupy towns, gardens, and open areas, and are a familiar sight perched on electric lines. Where different species occur together, they co-exist by occupying different habitats. Thus in Southeast Asia, the black, ashy, and greater racket-tailed (D. paradiseus) drongos live in more open woods, urban areas, and marshes, while the bronzed (D. aeneus), lesser racket-tailed (D. remifer), and hair-crested drongos keep to denser forests, often replacing one another altitudinally. In Africa, square-tailed (D. ludwigii), velvet-mantled (D. modestus), and shining (D. atripennis) drongos replace one another in different strata in different structural habitats. Wherever they occur, both resident and migratory populations are well dispersed at densities of about 5–40 birds per mi², depending on productivity and connectivity of habitat.

Behavior

Solitary except when paired or in family groups during breeding, drongos are nevertheless showy and noisy birds. Their daily routine is one of perching in the bare middle tiers of trees or their edges, on exposed vantage points from which to sally out in buoyant but agile evolutions on the wing after food, and then return. On the perch they sit upright, long tail hanging down and sporadically waving or twitching from side to side. All movement is on the wing, the birds never moving about on foot. To bathe, they plunge-dive from a perch or flight. Among the first birds to rise before dawn and the last to go to roost, drongos call regularly throughout the day year round, mostly from perches. The calls, of a great variety of grating chatters, creaking hinge notes, discordant chuckles, and melodious whistles, usually have something of a metallic twang; and each song stanza is rarely longer than five or six quick syllables. Some species, perhaps all, are accomplished mimics. Although some species are more retiring than others, all are rather quarrelsome, and are bold and pugnacious in defense of territory. They will attack and chase off birds as large as crows and medium-sized raptors, and mob owls, hornbills, and small predatory mammals.

Feeding ecology and diet

Drongos feed by hawking from perches, either catching prey in the air or picking it from the surface of leaves, branches, or ground. They often join flocks of mixed insectivorous birds quartering their habitat, benefiting from insects disturbed by other species. Drongos of more open habitat also converge opportunistically on fires to snap up insects flushed by flame and smoke. They take an enormous variety of arthropods, many of them large and hard-shelled and most of them flying: grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, mantids, cicadas, moths and butterflies, dragonflies, ants, and even venomous Hymenoptera (wasps and bees), occasional arachnids, and sometimes small birds; they also rifle blossoms for nectar. Termite emergences have a special attraction. Large items are carried in the foot and held by it at a perch, to be torn apart with the bill; moths, butterflies, and dragonflies have their wings torn off before being swallowed.

Reproductive biology

Monogamous and aggressively territorial, drongos breed in dispersed pairs, some species often rearing several broods in a season. In most regions, breeding peaks over spring and summer, particularly in temperate zones north and south of the tropics, where post-breeding molt is also more consistently seasonal. Little is known of courtship, which may comprise little more than head bobbing and bowing, and duetting and counter-singing, as male and female sit together. Both sexes share all nesting duties from nest construction to incubation and rearing of young. Nests are flimsy, shallow saucers of loosely but neatly intertwined rootlets, tendrils and, in some species, leaves, lined with finer material and sometimes wool, often bound on the outside with cobweb and camouflaging lichen, and hung in a horizontal fork at the end of a branch at 6.6–82 ft (2–25 m) above the ground. In clutches of two to five, eggs are salmon-buff to pale cream or pinkish white, covered in freckles and small blotches of brownish red, black, or umber and lilac according to species, with underlying smudges and streaks of pale gray and purple; they measure about 0.8–1.2 by 0.5–0.8 in (20–30 by 15–21 mm). In the African fork-tailed drongo (D. adsimilis), eggs hatch in 16–17 days and young fledge in another 17–18 days.

Conservation status

Drongo survival is only threatened when total treed habitat is limited in area. This is the case for species confined to small islands, such as those in the Comoro group off the central east coast of Africa. Both the Comoro drongo (D. fuscipennis) on Grand Comoro Island and Mayotte drongo (D. waldenii) on Mayotte Island are listed by IUCN as Endangered. Two of the four species in the Near Threatened category also occur on small islands: D. aldabranus on Aldabra Island just north of the Comoros, and D. andamanensis in the

Andamans in the Bay of Bengal. Of the other two, the velvet-mantled drongo (D. modestus) occurs in west central Africa and the Sumatran drongo (D. sumatranus) is endemic to Sumatra, Indonesia. Destruction of forest habitat is their primary threat.

Significance to humans

Despite their extrovert behavior, drongos have made little impact on human society and culture except for the black drongo. This species, a familiar urban commensal across southern Asia, is often cultivated in captivity there. Black drongos from Taiwan were also introduced successfully to Rota in the southern Marianas (Micronesia) in the 1930s, and from there had colonized neighboring Guam by the early 1960s. Its other vernacular name—king crow—celebrates its nerve and pugnacity in driving off predatorial birds much larger than itself.

Species accounts

List of Species

Pygmy drongo

Chaetorhynchus papuensis

taxonomy

Chaetorhynchus papuensis A. B. Meyer, 1874, Arfak Mountains, northwest New Guinea. Monotypic. Monarch-like in form and behavior, this species has been confused with the monarch-flycatcher group in the past.

other common names

English: Papuan drongo; French: Drongo papou; German: Rundschwanzdrongo; Spanish: Drogo Papúa.

physical characteristics

8–8.5 in (20–22 cm); 1.2–1.6 oz (35–45 g), both sexes. A very small drongo, all black with blue gloss over head and back. It has rictal bristles that extend beyond the bill tip, a short rounded crest over the head, a square-tipped tail of 12 feathers, a concealed white patch on the inner wing coverts under the scapulars in both sexes, and brown eye; immatures are duskier and glossless, and lack the concealed white wing spot.

distribution

Lower slopes of mountain ranges throughout mainland New Guinea, between 1,600 and 5,000 ft (488–1,524 m) above sea level.

habitat

Interior of primary and tall secondary hill rainforest.

behavior

Solitary or in pairs within lower stages of rainforest where territorial sallying for arthropod food on wing or perching motionless

on bare exposed twigs and branches, sitting near upright with tail hanging down and occasionally twitching from side to side or raised, fantail (Rhipidura)-like, on alighting. Sporadically vocal, uttering two types of song of unknown function, one an explosive jumble of nasal and metallic rasps and squeaks (4.5–5.0 seconds), the other a loud melodious mix of whistles, chips, and warbles; other calls comprise a range of metallic clicks, slurs, and squeaks.

feeding ecology and diet

Forages by drongo-like sallying in more open mid and lower strata of forest, capturing a range of insects; commonly associates with feeding flocks of other bird species, benefiting from insects disturbed.

reproductive biology

Not known.

conservation status

Not threatened.

significance to humans

None known.

Square-tailed drongo

Dicrurus ludwigii

taxonomy

Edolius ludwigii A. Smith, 1834, Port Natal = Durban, South Africa. Five subspecies.

other common names

French: Drongo de Ludwig; German: Geradschwanzdrongo; Spanish: Drogo de Cola Cuadrada.

physical characteristics

7–7.5 in (18–19 cm); 0.8–1.3 oz (25–35 g). Smallest of drongos, plain headed, red-eyed, and all black, glossed purplish or green, with a characteristically short and squarish tail; females are similar to males or duller, and immatures dull in both sexes and speckled pale gray on mantle and breast.

distribution

Endemic to Africa where patchy in distribution: subspecies sharpei occurs in a narrow band through the west and central tropics from Guinea to Uganda, western Kenya, and other minor races in central Angola, Zambia-Zaire, southeast Somalia, eastern Tanzania, and coastal Mozambique to the southeast Cape Province.

habitat

Middle and lower strata of gallery forest, moist thicket, wooded glades, primary rainforest, and denser woodland from sea-level up to 6,600 ft (2,000 m) above sea level in the tropics. D. l. sharpei, in particular, keeps to gallery forests and woodlands around the fringe of primary rainforest, being replaced within by the shining drongo (D. atripennis).

behavior

Usually permanently territorial, in pairs or family groups. Though more retiring than other African drongos, it still forages by sallying, sits on exposed vantage perches with tail drooped and twitched from side to side, defends nest pugnaciously, and calls often and rather loudly: repeated single-note upslurred or down-slurred whistles and buzzes. Song duets are a quiet and rapidly delivered medley of short whistles and liquid chattery notes.

feeding ecology and diet

Aerial insectivore, often accompanying foraging bands of mixed species of birds. Diet mainly of rather large insects: moths, grasshoppers, mantids, and beetles; also exploits termite emergences.

reproductive biology

Breeds April through November north of equator and September through April in south. Nest a small, neat saucer of lichen and dry stems bound thickly with cobweb at rim, 2.9 in diameter × 1 in deep (75 mm × 25 mm), suspended by rim in horizontal fork at branchlet extremity 6.6–26 ft (2–8 m) above ground; eggs two to three per clutch, 0.8–0.9 × 0.6–0.7 in (20–23 × 15–16.5 mm), white to pale buff, spotted with lilac and brown, mostly at larger end.

conservation status

Not threatened.

significance to humans

None known.

Ribbon-tailed drongo

Dicrurus megarhynchus

taxonomy

Edolius megarhynchus Quoy and Gaimard, 1830, "Dorérei" = Port Praslin, New Ireland. Monotypic member of spangled drongo (D. bracteatus) superspecies.

other common names

French: Drongo de Nouvelle-Irlande; German: Bandschwanzdrongo; Spanish: Drogo de Nueva Irlanda.

physical characteristics

22–25 in (55–63 cm). Largest of drongos, with strong bill and enormously elongate, streaming, in-curling outer tail feathers that are slightly spathulate at the tips. Iris rich red and plumage all black, with blue gloss on upper surface and wings, paler blue-glossed spangles on breast, and white tipping on concealed under-wing coverts; females are smaller and immatures are duller, near glossless.

distribution

Endemic to New Ireland in Bismarck Archipelago, at all altitudes from sea-level to 5,900 ft (1,800 m) above sea level.

habitat

Mainly interior of mid and upper strata of primary and tall secondary rainforest.

behavior

More retiring than other drongos, but territorial resident year-round and similarly solitary or in pairs, sitting upright on open perches within cover, tail dangling. It flares the tail when calling; calls include a loud, liquid medley of whistles (probably song) unlike the metallic twanging chatter of other drongos.

feeding ecology and diet

Aerial insectivore, sallying actively like other drongos, tail trailing, taking a range of large arthropods in flight or picked from the surface of leaves and branches.

reproductive biology

Not known.

conservation status

Not threatened.

significance to humans

None known.

Ashy drongo

Dicrurus leucophaeus

taxonomy

Dicrurus leucophaeus Vieillot, 1817, "Ceylon" = Java. About fourteen subspecies, differing principally in depth of body tone, tail furcation, and presence and extent of a white facial mark. All subspecies intergrade where their breeding ranges meet.

other common names

French: Drongo cendré; German: Graudrongo; Spanish: Drogo Cenzio.

physical characteristics

10.5–12.0 in (26–30 cm); 1.4–2.2 oz (40–60 g). The only gray drongo, slim in body and with well-forked tail, varying from pale to dark slaty ashen, paler ventrally and with light green-blue gloss dorsally that disappears in the palest races; sexes alike and rich red-eyed but immatures duller and brown-eyed.

distribution

Southeast Afghanistan through Himalayas, peninsular India and Sri Lanka to all Southeast Asia north through central and east China to south Manchuria and southeast in Greater Sundas and off-shore islands north to Palawan (Philippines) and east to Lombok (Lesser Sundas). More northern populations migrate to more tropical latitudes out of breeding during November through March.

habitat

Edges and open interior of taller, intact forest, including rain-forest, bamboo forest, and mixed pine-oak forest, as well as

shady village groves when resident or breeding, at altitudes from sea level to over 9,900 ft (3,000 m); migrants commonly enter more open woodlands, gardens and plantations at winter quarters.

behavior

Usually in pairs or small groups, particularly on migration, ashy drongos work through the upper strata of trees, perching high up and launching in swooping sallies after food, from tree top to near the ground. Calls are a varied assortment of harsh screeches, metallic chatterings, and pleasant musical whistles; mimicry is often included.

feeding ecology and diet

Crepuscular aerial insectivore, feeding by sallying from vantage perches from dawn almost until dark. Diet includes a variety of flying insects—locusts, grasshoppers, crickets, moths and butterflies, ants, beetles, and venomous Hymenoptera—as well as occasional small reptiles and birds. Ashy drongos gather in groups of up to 30 or so at termite emergences, and also rifle nectar frequently.

reproductive biology

Northern migratory populations breed in the late boreal spring into early summer (April–June), but residents in more tropical latitudes are less seasonal (December–February in Borneo). Nest: a shallow saucer of lichen, dry leaves, and stems secured with or without cobweb in a slender fork at the end of a branchlet at 33–66 ft (10–20 m) above ground. Eggs: two to four per clutch, 0.9–1 × 0.70–0.74 (22.5–25.0 × 17–19 mm), variably pinkish cream to sometimes dark buff, and rather heavily spotted and blotched with reddish brown and black.

conservation status

Although the species as a whole is not threatened, its forms on small islands off Sumatra—D. l. periophthalmicus and D. l. siberu—are probably under threat from habitat depletion.

significance to humans

None known.

Greater racket-tailed drongo

Dicrurus paradiseus

taxonomy

Cuculus paradiseus Linnaeus, 1766, "Siam" = region between Ayuthia and Gulf of Thailand. About 14 subspecies, differing principally in size and presence and form of crest and tail rackets.

other common names

English: Large racket-tailed drongo; French: Drongo à raquettes; German: Flaggendrongo; Spanish: Drogo de Cola Raqueta Grande.

physical characteristics

13–14 in (33–36 cm), excluding rackets; 2.5–4.4 oz (70–125 g). Most extravagantly plumed drongo, red-eyed and all black glossed bluish to greenish, with scaly-hackled mantle, a large crest varying from forward-facing bristles to, usually, webbed plumes curving back over crown in a mane, and an extraordinary tail with two outer racket-tipped streamers that, of variable form, are often bare of webbing except for short, twisted spoon-shaped vanes at tips; sexes similar but immatures dull and brown-eyed with vestigial crests and shortened tail streamers.

distribution

Lowland Southeast Asia, locally to 4,900 ft (1,500 m) above sea level, from India and Sri Lanka north to south Himalayas, and east to all Southeast Asia south of south China (Yunnan, Hainan Island) and north Vietnam, and throughout Greater Sundas and archipelagos in the Bay of Bengal.

habitat

Open interior and edges of evergreen and deciduous forests, including rainforests, and taller close woodlands, from sea-level to 4,900 ft (1,500 m); also plantations, garden edges, and open secondary growth.

behavior

Either solitary, in pairs or small family groups, greater racket-tailed drongos are resident and territorial throughout their range. They commonly associate with foraging bands of mixed bird species, perching on exposed branches in and on the edge of forest mid-strata and sallying forth on wing. Flight is buoyant and dipping, of rapid flapping then gliding, the tail streamers making a distinctive humming. Racket-tails are extrovertly noisy, often displaying and counter-singing in small groups, and are one of the first and last birds stirring at dawn and dusk. They have a lusty repertoire of resonant warbles, whistles, and bell-like notes, mixed with typically drongo-like dry chatterings and metallic twanging; mimicry is also a feature.

feeding ecology and diet

Hawks, like other drongos, catching prey in mid-air or from vegetation surfaces and often carrying it in its claws to a perch for dismembering. Diet comprises mainly a range of large flying insects (termites, moths, beetles, dragonflies, ants, bees, locusts, and mantids); nectar is an important supplement.

reproductive biology

Breeds over summer (June–July) in northern parts of range, but earlier from winter (February) in the low tropics. Nest a deep, loose cup, 5.9 in diameter × 1.9 in deep (15 cm × 5 cm), of twigs, bark, and tendrils, unlined and with little, if any, binding cobweb, fastened at the rim into a horizontal fork at a branch end, 16–50 ft (5–15 m) above the ground. Eggs, in clutches of 2–4, are 1–1.1 in × 0.7–0.8 in (26–29 mm × 19–21 mm) and creamy white to pale pink, blotched and speckled with deep red-brown and underlying pink-grays.

conservation status

Although the species as a whole is not threatened, some of its races on small islands are vulnerable to habitat depletion, notably D. p. banguey, D. p. microlophus, D. p. lophorinus, D. p. otiosus, D. p. nicobariensis, and possibly D. p. johni.

significance to humans

None known.

Black drongo

Dicrurus macrocercus

taxonomy

Dicrurus macrocercus Vieillot, 1817, "Afrique" = Madras, India. About seven subspecies, differing in size, tone of gloss and wing lining, tail function, and presence of a white facial spot.

other common names

English: King crow; French: Drongo royal; German: Königsdrongol; Spanish: Drogo Real.

physical characteristics

11–13 in (26–32 cm); 1.5–2.2 oz (40–60 gm). The archetypal drongo, slender bodied, jet black with blue or green gloss, red eye, uncrested and without hackles but well bristled around bill, and tail deeply forked; sexes are similar, and immatures dull, shorter-tailed, and brown-eyed.

distribution

Southeast Iran and south Afghanistan through south Himalayas to all India, Sri Lanka and mainland Southeast Asia north through central and east China to Formosa and south Manchuria, at altitudes from sea level to 6,600 ft (2,000 m); also an outlying population on Java and Bali.

habitat

Savannas, fields, and urban habitats outside forest, in more open environments than occupied by other drongos; over much of its range the black drongo has become a commensal of man.

behavior

Thrives in open habitat, seeking exposed vantage perches in isolated trees, fence posts, tops of banks, buildings, and electric wires and poles, and sallying out from them on wing in buoyant, acrobatic evolutions. Tropical populations are resident but opportunistically nomadic out of breeding, and more temperate populations north through China are strongly migratory. This species is more social than other drongos, particularly out of breeding and may roost in flocks, dispersing at dawn to respective feeding territories. It is also especially pugnacious and fearless in defending feeding and breeding territory from larger, predatorial birds. Calls comprise a variety of harsh metallic chatterings; in apparent courtship, pairs or competitive trios perch close or face to face duetting or counter-singing in harsh scolding notes accompanied by violent up-and-down head-bowing and wing fluttering aerial chases.

feeding ecology and diet

An opportunistic aerial insectivore, congregating loosely at concentrations of food and environmental disturbances that flush it, such as fire, grazing domestic stock, field clearing, and ploughing. Black drongos even chase other birds piratically for captured prey, and will sometimes settle on the ground to pick up ants and emerging termites. Their staple diet comprises a range of large, hard-cased field insects—locusts and crickets, beetles, and bees— and also some moths and butterflies and, infrequently, small reptiles, birds, and bats. Nectar is an important supplement, and the drongos may play a useful role in plant pollination.

reproductive biology

Breeds from February to August, earlier in the tropics and later in more temperate regions, coincident with peaks in insect activity. Nest a flimsy saucer of twigs, grass, and fiber, cemented and bound with cobweb to a horizontal fork at end of a branch about 13–39 ft (4–12 m) above the ground, commonly in an isolated tree with clear view of surroundings. Eggs, in clutches of 2–5, are 0.8–1.1 × 0.7–0.8 in (20–28 × 18–20 mm), whitish to pinkish cream and spotted and blotched with reddish brown and black. Nests are often parasitized by cuckoos, e.g., Surniculus lugubris and Eudynamys scolopacea.

conservation status

Not threatened.

significance to humans

None known.

Resources

Books

Ali, S., and S.D. Ripley. Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan, Vol. 5. Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1972.

Coates, B.J. The Birds of Papua New Guinea. Vol. 2. Alderley, Qld: Dove Publications, 1990.

Du Pont, J.E. Philippine Birds, Monograph Series No. 2. Wilmington: Delaware Museum of Natural History, 1971.

Fry, C.H, S. Keith, and E.K. Urban, eds. The Birds of Africa. Vol. VI. New York: Academic Press, 2000.

MacKinnon, J., and K. Phillipps. A Field Guide to the Birds of Borneo, Sumatra, Java, and Bali. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Schodde, R., and S.C. Tidemann, consultant eds. Reader's Digest Complete Book of Australian Birds. 2nd ed. Sydney: Reader's Digest Services, 1986.

Schodde, R., and I.J. Mason. The Directory of Australian Birds, Passerines. Melbourne: CSIRO Publishing, 1999.

Sibley, C.G., and J.E. Ahlquist. Phylogeny and Classification of Birds. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990.

Sibley, C.G., and B.L. Monroe, Jr. Distribution and Taxonomy of Birds of the World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990.

Smythies, B.E. The Birds of Borneo. 3rd ed. Kota Kinabalu and Kuala Lumpur: The Sabah Society and the Sabah Nature Society, 1981.

Vaurie, C. "Dicruridae." Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 3. Cambridge, MA: Museum of Comparative Zoology, 1962.

Periodicals

Beehler, B.M. "Notes on the Mountain Birds of New Ireland." Emu 78 (1978): 65–70.

Vaurie, C. "A Revision of the Bird Family Dicruridae." Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 93 (1949): 199–342.

Organizations

Australian National Wildlife Collection. GPO Box 284, Canberra, ACT 2601 Australia. Phone: +61 2 6242 1600. Fax: +61-2-6242-1688.

Other

Australian Biological Resources Study. Canberra, ACT, Australia.

UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Center. Threatened Animals of the World.<http://www.unepwcmc.org/species/animals/animalredlist.html>. January 2002.

Richard Schodde, PhD