The fire-tufted barbet (''Psilopogon pyrolophus'') 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 lightweigh ...

in the Asian barbet

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

Megalaimidae The Asian barbets are a family of bird species, the Megalaimidae, comprising two genera with 35 species native to the forests of the Indomalayan realm from Tibet to Indonesia. They were once clubbed with all barbets in the family Capitonidae bu ...

. It is native to

Peninsular Malaysia Peninsular Malaysia ( ms, Semenanjung Malaysia; Jawi: سمننجڠ مليسيا), or the States of Malaya ( ms, Negeri-negeri Tanah Melayu; Jawi: نڬري-نڬري تانه ملايو), also known as West Malaysia or the Malaysian Peninsula, ...

and

Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...

, where it inhabits tropical moist lowland and montane forests. It has been listed as

Least Concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

on the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...

since 2004. Its

scientific name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

was proposed by

Salomon Müller Salomon Müller (7 April 1804 – 29 December 1864) was a German naturalist. He was born in Heidelberg, and died in Freiburg im Breisgau. Müller was the son of a saddler in Heidelberg. Along with Heinrich Boie and Heinrich Christian Macklot, he ...

in 1836, who described a barbet from Sumatra.

Description

The moderately large bird (28 cm), the adult birds are overall green in appearance and have a brownish-maroon nape, grey lores, white band on the forehead, throat green, followed by a bright yellow band before a black band, appearing like a necklace separates the belly. The bill is fawn colored with a black vertical band. Tufts of feathers at the base of beak. Upper tufts fiery orange in males.Robson, C. (2000). A guide to the birds of Southeast Asia: Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. Princeton University Press.

Distribution and habitat

The fire-tufted barbet inhabits

broad-leaved A broad-leaved, broad-leaf, or broadleaf tree is any tree within the diverse botanical group of angiosperms that has flat leaves and produces seeds inside of fruits. It is one of two general types of trees, the other being a conifer, a tree with ne ...

evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season. This also pertains to plants that retain their foliage only in warm climates, and contrasts with deciduous plants, which ...

montane forests between on the

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 area ...

and Sumatra.

Behaviour and ecology

The fire-tufted barbet is a resident bird and feeds on

figs The fig is the edible fruit of ''Ficus carica'', a species of small tree in the flowering plant family Moraceae. Native to the Mediterranean and western Asia, it has been cultivated since ancient times and is now widely grown throughout the world ...

, other fruits,

arthropod Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a Segmentation (biology), segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and Arth ...

s and insects. Its call is very similar to that of

cicada The cicadas () are a superfamily, the Cicadoidea, of insects in the order Hemiptera (true bugs). They are in the suborder Auchenorrhyncha, along with smaller jumping bugs such as leafhoppers and froghoppers. The superfamily is divided into two ...

Threats

The primary threat to this species appears to be illegal capture and trade as a pet.

References

External links

fire-tufted barbet The fire-tufted barbet (''Psilopogon pyrolophus'') is a species of bird in the Asian barbet family Megalaimidae. It is native to Peninsular Malaysia and Sumatra, where it inhabits tropical moist lowland and montane forests. It has been listed a ...

Birds of the Malay Peninsula Birds of Malaysia Birds of Sumatra Taxa named by Salomon Müller

Articles containing video clips Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Piciformes-stub