The golden-whiskered barbet (''Psilopogon chrysopogon'') is an

Asian barbet 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 ...

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

native to the western Malay Archipelago, where it inhabits foremost forests up to elevation. 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 because of its wide distribution.

Description

The golden-whiskered barbet has a green plumage of various hues. On both sides of the black

beak The beak, bill, or rostrum is an external anatomical structure found mostly in birds, but also in turtles, non-avian dinosaurs and a few mammals. A beak is used for eating, preening, manipulating objects, killing prey, fighting, probing for foo ...

it has a yellow moustache that extends to the ear canal. Its throat is blue, and it has small blue and red spots on the head. Its eyes are also surrounded by blue. Its forecrown is pale yellow, with red patches on both sides of the beak. It is long and weighs . Female and male are similar in appearance but display a small degree of sexual dichromatism in that the beaks of the female appear paler with a dusky bluish color. Before reaching maturity birds of both sexes have duller overall plumage.

Distribution and habitat

The golden-whiskered barbet ranges from the Malay Peninsula to Sumatra and

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 ...

, where it inhabits

tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests (TSMF), also known as tropical moist forest, is a subtropical and tropical forest habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Description TSMF is generally found in large, discon ...

and

montane forest Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is a crucial ...

. It has also been sighted in

cacao plantation ''Theobroma cacao'', also called the cacao tree and the cocoa tree, is a small ( tall) evergreen tree in the family Malvaceae. Its seeds, cocoa beans, are used to make chocolate liquor, cocoa solids, cocoa butter and chocolate. The largest pro ...

and

second growth forest A secondary forest (or second-growth forest) is a forest or woodland area which has re-grown after a timber harvest or clearing for agriculture, until a long enough period has passed so that the effects of the disturbance are no longer evident. I ...

s but is rare in

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, whic ...

and

swamp forests Freshwater swamp forests, or flooded forests, are forests which are inundated with freshwater, either permanently or seasonally. They normally occur along the lower reaches of rivers and around freshwater lakes. Freshwater swamp forests are found ...

Behaviour and ecology

The golden-whiskered barbet spends most of the day in the

forest canopy In biology, the canopy is the aboveground portion of a plant cropping or crop, formed by the collection of individual plant crowns. In forest ecology, canopy also refers to the upper layer or habitat zone, formed by mature tree crowns an ...

. It forages mostly on

fig 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 ...

s and

berries A berry is a small, pulpy, and often edible fruit. Typically, berries are juicy, rounded, brightly colored, sweet, sour or tart, and do not have a stone or pit, although many pips or seeds may be present. Common examples are strawberries, rasp ...

. As it has been observed picking on dead wood, it is assumed that it also looks for insects. It sings a series of 'too-tuk' notes, and when breeding also despite high temperatures during day. It

breeds A breed is a specific group of domestic animals having homogeneous appearance (phenotype), homogeneous behavior, and/or other characteristics that distinguish it from other organisms of the same species. In literature, there exist several slight ...

from February to August and lays two eggs per clutch.

Taxonomy

''Bucco chrysopogon'' was the scientific name proposed by Coenraad Jacob Temminck in 1824 for a gold-whiskered barbet from Sumatra. Asian barbets were placed in the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

''Megalaima'' proposed by

George Robert Gray George Robert Gray FRS (8 July 1808 – 6 May 1872) was an English zoologist and author, and head of the ornithological section of the British Museum, now the Natural History Museum, in London for forty-one years. He was the younger brother ...

in 1842 who suggested to use this name instead of ''Bucco''. ''Megalaima chrysopsis'' proposed by Andreas Goffin in 1863 was based on two gold-whiskered barbets collected in Borneo. ''Chrotorhea chrysopogon laetus'' proposed by

Herbert C. Robinson Herbert Christopher Robinson (4 November 1874 – 20 May 1929) was a British zoologist and ornithologist. He is principally known for conceiving and initiating the major ornithological reference '' The Birds of the Malay Peninsula''. Robinson ...

and C. Boden Kloss in 1918 was a gold-whiskered barbet collected at

Mount Kerinci Mount Kerinci (also spelled Kerintji, among several other ways, and referred to as Gunung Kerinci, Gadang, Berapi Kurinci, Kerinchi, Korinci/Korintji, or Peak of Indrapura/Indrapoera) is an active stratovolcano and the highest mountain in Sumatra ...

in Sumatra. Three golden-whiskered barbet subspecies are recognized as of 2014: * ''P. c. chrysopogon'' occurs in Sumatra * ''P. c. chrysopsis'' occurs in Borneo * ''P. c. laetus'' ranges from southwestern Thailand to Peninsular Malaysia

Other names

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...

it is known as 金须拟䴕 (jīnxū nǐliè) "golden-whiskered false

woodpecker Woodpeckers are part of the bird family Picidae, which also includes the piculets, wrynecks, and sapsuckers. Members of this family are found worldwide, except for Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Madagascar, and the extreme polar regions. ...

" or 金颊拟啄木鸟 (jīn jiá nǐ-zhuómù-niǎo) or as "gold-cheeked false woodpecker". Its

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

name is キホオゴシキドリ or 黄頬五色鳥 (kihō goshikidori), "yellow-cheeked five-coloured bird."

References

External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q27074841 golden-whiskered barbet Birds of Malaysia Birds of Malesia golden-whiskered barbet Articles containing video clips Taxonomy articles created by Polbot