Banggai Crow

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Banggai Crow

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Corvidae
Genus:	Corvus
Species:	C. unicolor

Binomial name

Corvus unicolor
(Rothschild & Hartert, 1900)

Synonyms

Corvus enca unicolor
Gazzola unicolor

The Banggai Crow, Corvus unicolor, is a member of the crow family. It is listed as a critically endangered species because of the lack of recent records on the species and knowledge of habitat loss and might even be extinct already, but very little is known about this species.

It was sometimes considered a subspecies of the Slender-billed Crow, but it is actually rather distinct from this bird, resembling an entirely black Piping Crow overall. The Banggai Crow is a medium-sized crow, some 39 cm long and completely black with a dark iris and a short tail.^[1]

The Banggai Crow is thought to live in subtropical or tropical lowlands and moist forest. It is only known from two specimens taken from an unknown island in the Banggai Archipelago - probably in 1884/1885 -, and visits to the archipelago in 1991 and 1996 yielded no unequivocal records of the species, leading some to believe it is extinct. The decline of the Banggai Crow is thought to be primarily due to habitat loss and degradation through agriculture and extraction.

This bird remains a complete enigma. Listed as Vulnerable in the 1994 IUCN Red List, it was uplisted to Endangered in 2000. In 2006, it was further uplisted to Possibly Extinct. Though this might indeed be correct, it was at least technically in error as no dedicated effort has ever been made to search for it, and a single bird which might have been this species was seen in 1991 or 1996. Thus, its status is corrected to Critically Endangered 2007 Red List issue.^[2]

[edit] Footnotes

^ Vaurie (1958), Madge & Burn (1994).
^ See Collar et al. (2001), BirdLife International (2004, 2007a,b).

[edit] References

BirdLife International (2004). Corvus unicolor. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 15 April 2007.
BirdLife International (2007a): [ 2006-2007 Red List status changes ]. Retrieved 2007-AUG-26.
BirdLife International (2007b): Banggai Crow - BirdLife Species Factsheet. Retrieved 2007-AUG-28.
Collar, Nigel J.; Andreev, A. V.; Chan, S.; Crosby, M. J.; Subramanya, S. & Tobias, J. A. (eds.) (2001): Banggai Crow. In: Threatened Birds of Asia: The BirdLife International Red Data Book: 2415-2416. BirdLife International. ISBN 0946888442 HTML fulltext
Madge, Steve & Burn, Hilary (1994): Crows and jays: a guide to the crows, jays and magpies of the world. A&C Black, London. ISBN 0-7136-3999-7
Vaurie, Charles (1958): Remarks on some Corvidae of Indo-Malaya and the Australian region. American Museum Novitates 1915: 1-13. PDF fulltext