The hair-crested drongo (Dicrurus hottentottus) is an
Asianbird 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.[2]
It is native from
Bangladesh,[1]India, and
Bhutan through
Indochina to
China,
Indonesia, and
Brunei.[1] 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.[3]
Taxonomy
In 1760, French zoologist
Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the hair-crested drongo in his Ornithologie based on a specimen that he mistakenly believed had been collected from the
Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. He used the French name Le choucas du Cap de Bonne Espérance and the Latin Monedula Capitis Bonae Spei.[4] Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the
binomial system and are not recognised by the
International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.[5] When in 1766, Swedish naturalist
Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the
12th edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson.[5] One of these was the hair-crested drongo. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the
binomial nameCorvus hottentottus and cited Brisson's work.[6] The
type locality was subsequently corrected to Chandannagar in
West Bengal.[7] The
specific namehottentottus is from "Hottentot", a term formerly used for the
Khoikhoi, a nomadic pastoral people of southwest Africa.[8] This species is now placed in the
genusDicrurus that was introduced for the drongos by French ornithologist
Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1816.[9]
Twelve
subspecies are currently recognised, although some have been proposed as separate species:[10][11]
D. h. hottentottus(Linnaeus, 1766) –
India, central Myanmar and southern Indochina
D. h. brevirostris(Cabanis, 1851) – central and southern [China, northern
Myanmar, and northern
Indochina
^
abIt has been proposed to recognise leucops and banggaiensis as a separate species, the white-eyed spangled drongo[10][11]
^
abcIt has been proposed to recognise faberi, jentincki and termeuleni as a separate species, the Javan spangled drongo.[10][11]
Several other former subspecies are now recognised as separate species or subspecies of other species in the species complex, the
Tablas drongo (Dicrurus menagei) and the
Palawan drongo (Dicrurus palawanensis, including subspecies cuyensis).
^
abAllen, J.A. (1910). "Collation of Brisson's genera of birds with those of Linnaeus". Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. 28: 317–335.
hdl:
2246/678.
^Jobling, J.A. (2018). del Hoyo, J.; Elliott, A.; Sargatal, J.; Christie, D.A.; de Juana, E. (eds.).
"Key to Scientific Names in Ornithology". Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
^
abcdEaton, JA; van Balen, B; Brickle, NW; Rheindt, FE (2016). Birds of the Indonesian Archipelago. Greater Sundas and Wallacea. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.