Coquerel's Coua
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Coquerel's coua (''Coua coquereli'') is a species of
cuckoo Cuckoos are birds in the Cuculidae ( ) family, the sole taxon in the order Cuculiformes ( ). The cuckoo family includes the common or European cuckoo, roadrunners, koels, malkohas, couas, coucals, and anis. The coucals and anis are somet ...
in the family
Cuculidae Cuckoos are birds in the Cuculidae ( ) family, the sole taxon in the order Cuculiformes ( ). The cuckoo family includes the common or European cuckoo, roadrunners, koels, malkohas, couas, coucals, and anis. The coucals and anis are someti ...
. It is
endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only 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 foun ...
to
Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...
. Its
habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, 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 manifestation of its ...
is subtropical or tropical dry
forest A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense ecological community, community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, ...
s. It was named in 1867 by the French naturalist
Alfred Grandidier Alfred Grandidier (20 December 1836 – 13 September 1921) was a French natural history, naturalist and List of explorers, explorer. From a very wealthy family, at the age of 20, he and his brother, Ernest Grandidier (1833–1912), undertook a ...
in honor of the French navy surgeon and naturalist
Charles Coquerel Jean Charles Coquerel (2 December 1822 – 12 April 1867) was a French navy surgeon, algae, algologist, and entomologist. Coquerel collected insects in Madagascar and neighbouring islands. A number of these were described after his death by Léon ...
.


Description

Coquerel's coua is approximately in length and has a large blue patch of bare skin around the eye, a characteristic of the ''
Coua Couas are large, mostly terrestrial birds of the cuckoo family, endemic to the island of Madagascar. Couas are reminiscent of African turacos when walking along tree branches, and they likewise feature brightly coloured bare skin around the eyes ...
'' genus that is similar to African
turaco The turacos make up the bird family Musophagidae ( "banana-eaters"), which includes '' plantain-eaters'' and '' go-away-birds''. In southern Africa both turacos and go-away-birds are commonly known as loeries. They are semi-zygodactylous: the ...
s. The plumage is silky, the crown is black, the upper parts and tail are light brown or greyish-brown, and the lower breast and belly is suffused with red. The iris is red and the beak and legs are slaty grey. As a member of the cuckoo family, it has a reversible third toe and resembles the coucal in its method of scrambling through tangled bushes and lianas while searching for food. Observations indicate that it can climb about above the ground.


Distribution and habitat

Coquerel's coua is
endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only 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 foun ...
to Madagascar where it lives in the
dry deciduous forest The tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forest is a habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature and is located at tropical and subtropical latitudes. Though these forests occur in climates that are warm year-round, and may receive ...
and gallery forest in the west of the island. It shares this habitat with the giant coua (''Coua gigas''). In this area, the wet season is from December to February, and this is followed by a long dry season.


Behaviour

Coquerel's coua is predominantly a ground-dwelling bird. It feeds mainly on
insect Insects (from Latin ') are Hexapoda, hexapod invertebrates of the class (biology), class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (Insect morphology#Head, head, ...
s and other
arthropod Arthropods ( ) are invertebrates in the phylum Arthropoda. They possess an arthropod exoskeleton, exoskeleton with a cuticle made of chitin, often Mineralization (biology), mineralised with calcium carbonate, a body with differentiated (Metam ...
s, with seeds also forming part of the diet. The diet and the feeding strategies used vary with the season, and include gleaning, probing the litter, chasing
prey Predation is a biological interaction in which one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not ki ...
, leaping and sallying into the air to catch insects. Coquerel's coua is a solitary bird during most of the year, each bird having a
home range A home range is the area in which an animal lives and moves on a periodic basis. It is related to the concept of an animal's territory which is the area that is actively defended. The concept of a home range was introduced by W. H. Burt in 1943. ...
. Towards the end of the dry season, birds form
monogamous Monogamy ( ) is a relationship of two individuals in which they form a mutual and exclusive intimate partnership. Having only one partner at any one time, whether for life or serial monogamy, contrasts with various forms of non-monogamy (e.g. ...
pairs, usually jointly occupying their individual home ranges. Breeding takes place in the wet season, between November and April. On several occasions males have been observed approaching females carrying a gift (a
caterpillar Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths). As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder ...
or a
grasshopper Grasshoppers are a group of insects belonging to the suborder Caelifera. They are amongst what are possibly the most ancient living groups of chewing herbivorous insects, dating back to the early Triassic around 250 million years ago. Grassh ...
), but after mating, has consumed the insect himself. The nests are built a few metres off the ground in dense vegetation. Unlike most other cuckoos, this bird builds its own nest, incubates its own eggs and rears its young. Clutch size averages 1.8 and the minimum incubation time is 13 days. The young have a patterned interior to the mouth (as do several related species) which may visually stimulate the parent to feed the juvenile. They leave the nest after about nine days, when still covered with down and unable to fly. They then perch on the ground or among the undergrowth awaiting visits by the adults, which feed them caterpillars and crickets. This early fledging may be because of the danger of nest predation by such
predators Predation is a biological interaction in which one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill ...
as the
narrow-striped mongoose The narrow-striped mongoose (''Mungotictis decemlineata'') is a member of the family Eupleridae endemic to Madagascar. It inhabits the western Madagascar succulent woodlands and northern Madagascar spiny thickets in western and southwestern Ma ...
, the
small Indian civet The small Indian civet (''Viverricula indica'') is a civet native to South and Southeast Asia. It is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List because of its widespread distribution, widespread habitat use and healthy populations living in agr ...
and the
common brown lemur The common brown lemur (''Eulemur fulvus'') is a species of lemur in the family Lemuridae. It is found in Madagascar and has been introduced to Mayotte. Taxonomy Five additional currently recognized species of lemur were until 2001 considered s ...
, snakes such as the Malagasy giant hognose, and birds such as the
Madagascar harrier-hawk The Madagascar harrier-hawk (''Polyboroides radiatus'') is a medium-sized species of bird of prey in the family Accipitridae, endemic to Madagascar. Description The Madagascar harrier-hawk is a medium-sized raptor with long and broad wings which ...
, the
cuckoo roller The cuckoo-roller or courol (''Leptosomus discolor'')del Hoyo, J. Elliott, A. & Sargatal, J. (2001) is the only bird in the family Leptosomidae , which was previously often placed in the order Coraciiformes but is now placed in its own order Lept ...
and the
Malagasy coucal The Malagasy coucal or Madagascar coucal (''Centropus toulou'') is a species of cuckoo in the family Cuculidae. It is found in Madagascar and in the Seychelles, where it occurs on Aldabra and was formerly present on Assumption Island and Cosm ...
.


Status

Although Coquerel's coua has a limited range in western Madagascar and the population appears to be decreasing, this is a slow trend and the bird is plentiful within its range. For these reasons, the
International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the stat ...
has assessed its conservation status as being of
least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been evaluated and categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wil ...
.


References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1131683 Coua Endemic birds of Madagascar Taxa named by Alfred Grandidier Birds described in 1867 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Madagascar dry deciduous forests