The white-faced starling (''Sturnornis albofrontatus'') is a member of the

starling Starlings are small to medium-sized passerine birds in the family Sturnidae. The Sturnidae are named for the genus '' Sturnus'', which in turn comes from the Latin word for starling, ''sturnus''. Many Asian species, particularly the larger ones, ...

family 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 ...

s. It is an

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

resident breeder in Sri Lanka. It was for a long time erroneously known as ''S. senex''; this was eventually identified as a junior synonym of the

red-billed starling The red-billed starling (''Spodiopsar sericeus'') is a species of starling in the family Sturnidae. It is found in south and southeastern China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the ...

(Mees 1997). The adults of these 22 cm-long birds have green-glossed dark grey upperparts and whitish underparts. The head is paler than the underparts. The sexes are similar, but juveniles are duller, with brown upperparts and greyer underparts. As 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 ...

Sturnus ''Sturnus'' is a genus of starlings. As discussed below, the taxonomy of this group is complex, and other authorities differ considerably in which species they place in this genus, and in the species boundaries within ''Sturnus''. The genus name ...

'' is highly paraphyletic, it was not certain whether the present species would be retained therein. Though it was not included in recent studies (Jønsson & Fjeldså 2006, Zuccon et al. 2006), its appearance suggests it is not close to the common starling, the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specime ...

of ''Sturnus''. It is also generally not included among those species which are often (and probably correctly) placed in ''

Acridotheres ''Acridotheres'' is a genus of starlings, the "typical" mynas, which are tropical members of the family Sturnidae. Distribution This genus has representatives in tropical southern Asia from Iran east to southern China and Indonesia. Two species ...

''. Most taxonomic authorities place the species in its own genus, ''Sturnornis''. This

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by th ...

is typically found in tall forest, usually high in the canopy. The white-faced starling builds its nest in a hole. The normal clutch is two eggs. Like most starlings, the white-faced starling is fairly omnivorous, eating fruit, nectar and insects.

References

* Database entry includes brief justification for why this species is Vulnerable. *Grimmett, Richard; Inskipp, Carol, Inskipp, Tim & Byers, Clive (1999): ''Birds of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives''. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J.. *Jønsson, Knud A. & Fjeldså, Jon (2006): A phylogenetic supertree of oscine passerine birds (Aves: Passeri). '' Zool. Scripta'' 35(2): 149–186. (HTML abstract) *Mees, G.F. (1997): On the identity of ''Heterornis senex'' Bonaparte. '' Bull. B. O. C.'' 117(1): 67–68. *Zuccon, Dario; Cibois, Alice; Pasquet, Eric & Ericson, Per G.P. (2006): Nuclear and mitochondrial sequence data reveal the major lineages of starlings, mynas and related taxa. ''Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution'' 41(2): 333–344. (HTML abstract) {{Taxonbar, from=Q834627 white-faced starling Endemic birds of Sri Lanka white-faced starling Taxa named by Edgar Leopold Layard