Hair-crested drongo

Hair-crested drongo
Adult in Singapore
Conservation status

Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Dicruridae
Genus: Dicrurus
Species: D. hottentottus
Binomial name
Dicrurus hottentottus
(Linnaeus, 1766)
Egg, Collection Museum Wiesbaden

The hair-crested drongo (Dicrurus hottentottus) is an Asian bird of the family Dicruridae. This species was formerly considered conspecific with Dicrurus bracteatus, for which the name "spangled drongo" formerly used for both is now usually reserved. Some authorities include the Sumatran drongo (D. sumatranus) in D. hottentottus as subspecies (Lepage 2003).

It is native from India and Bhutan through Indochina to China, Indonesia, and Brunei (BirdLife International 2008). Hair-crested drongos move in small flocks and are very noisy. The "spangled drongo," Dicrurus bracteatus is native on the east coast of Australia and its name is pejorative slang for a silly person. This may be due to its strange chattering and cackling. _"Complete Book of Australian Birds" Reader's Digest.1977.

References

Media related to Hair-crested drongo at Wikimedia Commons