The fiery minivet (''Pericrocotus igneus'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

in the family Campephagidae. Its range includes Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. Its natural

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

s are broadleaf, secondary and coastal forests. It is threatened by forest clearance and has been assessed as near-threatened by the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of nat ...

(IUCN).

Taxonomy

This species was described from Malacca by Edward Blyth in 1846. The species name is from the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

''igneus'' "fiery".

Harry C. Oberholser Harry Church Oberholser (June 25, 1870 – December 25, 1963) was an American ornithologist. Biography Harry Oberholser was born to Jacob and Lavera S. Oberholser on June 25, 1870, in Brooklyn, New York. He attended Columbia University, but did ...

described the larger subspecies ''Pericrocotus igneus trophis'' from

Simeulue Simeulue is an island of Indonesia, off the west coast of Sumatra. It covers an area of 1754 square kilometres (677 square miles), including minor offshore islands. It had a population of 80,674 at the 2010 census and 92,865 at the 2020 census ...

in 1912. A 2010 molecular phylogenetic study confirmed the previously hypothesised relationship that the fiery minivet and

small minivet The small minivet (''Pericrocotus cinnamomeus'') is a small passerine bird. This minivet is found in tropical southern Asia from the Indian subcontinent east to Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Sou ...

(''Pericrocotus cinnamomeus'') are

sister species In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...

Description

The fiery minivet is long. It is

sexually dimorphic Sexual dimorphism is the condition where the sexes of the same animal and/or plant species exhibit different morphological characteristics, particularly characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most ani ...

. The male has a glossy black head and mantle and an orange-red back. The wings are mostly glossy black, with orange-red edges to the secondary coverts and an orange-red patch on the flight feathers. The gradated tail is black and orange-red. The chin and throat are glossy black, and the rest of the underparts is orange-red. The eyes are dark brown, and the beak and feet are black. The female has a grey head, with orange lores and eye-rims. The back is lead grey, and the rump is orange-red. The wings are darker grey, and the wing-patch is paler than the male's. The underparts are yellow. The juvenile bird has sooty brown upperparts and sooty black flight feathers. The underparts are off-white from the chin to upper belly, the rest being pale yellow. After a post-juvenile moult, it becomes similar to the adult female.

Distribution and habitat

This species is found in Tenasserim, the

Thai-Malay Peninsula The Malay Peninsula ( Malay: ''Semenanjung Tanah Melayu'') is a peninsula in Mainland Southeast Asia. The landmass runs approximately north–south, and at its terminus, it is the southernmost point of the Asian continental mainland. The ar ...

, Sumatra and its satellite islands,

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and ea ...

and

Palawan Palawan (), officially the Province of Palawan ( cyo, Probinsya i'ang Palawan; tl, Lalawigan ng Palawan), is an archipelagic province of the Philippines that is located in the region of Mimaropa. It is the largest province in the country in t ...

. It is

locally extinct Local extinction, also known as extirpation, refers to a species (or other taxon) of plant or animal that ceases to exist in a chosen geographic area of study, though it still exists elsewhere. Local extinctions are contrasted with global extinct ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

. It lives in the canopy of lowland

broadleaf forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

forest edge A woodland edge or forest edge is the transition zone (ecotone) from an area of woodland or forest to fields or other open spaces. Certain species of plants and animals are adapted to the forest edge, and these species are often more familiar to hu ...

peat swamp forest Peat swamp forests are tropical moist forests where waterlogged soil prevents dead leaves and wood from fully decomposing. Over time, this creates a thick layer of acidic peat. Large areas of these forests are being logged at high rates. Peat ...

, well-grown secondary forest, and coastal and

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in severa ...

forest. It is found up to in elevation, mainly below . It sometimes visits wooded gardens near forests.

Behaviour

This minivet occurs in groups and also joins

mixed-species foraging flock A mixed-species feeding flock, also termed a mixed-species foraging flock, mixed hunting party or informally bird wave, is a flock of usually insectivorous birds of different species that join each other and move together while foraging. These ar ...

s. Its

contact call Contact calls are seemingly haphazard sounds made by many social animals (such as a chicken's cluck). Contact calls are unlike other calls (such as alarm calls) in that they are not usually widely used, conspicuous calls, but rather short exclamatio ...

is a ''swee-eet'' or ''twee-eet''. It catches insects in the air and from leaves and branches. Breeding has been observed from May to July. The shallow

cup nest A bird nest is the spot in which a bird lays and incubates its eggs and raises its young. Although the term popularly refers to a specific structure made by the bird itself—such as the grassy cup nest of the American robin or Eurasian bla ...

is built on a fork of a tree from twigs and fibres and camouflaged with lichen and pieces of bark. The eggs are pale yellowish, with brown and grey marks. Moulting has been recorded from June to September.

Status

Deforestation Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated ...

due to logging and land conversion has likely caused the population to decline at a moderate speed. Forest fires are also a threat, such as in 1997 and 1998. The IUCN has assessed it as a near-threatened species.

References

External links

Image at ADW
* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q2669119 fiery minivet Birds of Malesia fiery minivet fiery minivet Taxonomy articles created by Polbot