Madagascar Blue Vanga

Identification

The blue vanga is 16–19 cm (6.3–7.5 in) long and weighs 19.5–25.5 g (0.69–0.90 oz).<p>Adult males are bright blue in color, with a black line through the eye which extends to base of the bill, as well as above and below the bill. It has a paler blue eye-ring. The tail as well as edges and tips of the wings are black in colour. The underparts and throat are bright white in colour. Females tend to be slightly duller in colour than males, with the underparts also being off-white in colour with a pale orange or light buffy wash. The wings are slightly tinged greenish.<p>Juveniles have a grayish-blue head, with the rest of the upperparts being dark greenish olive. Their tail is similar in appearance to an adult female's, but has a duller green-blue pattern. The throat is dirty-white in colour, the rest of the underparts being olive-buff.<p>C. madagarensis has a vivid pale or cold blue beak, with a dark tip and cutting edges in adult males, and a dark brown with similar pattern in adult female. Juveniles have a black bill with pale pink base. The iris is sky-blue or greenish blue in males, and brown in females and juveniles. The legs are black in male and gray in females.<p>Calls are described as a very characteristic tcccch, which is sometimes repeated to form a chrr-crrk-crrk-crrrrk-crk-crk, similar to the chabert vanga's call. The song can be faster or slower, and the first note is usually of a higher pitch. They also make a teea teea teea or a harsh scheet, which is thought to be an alarm call. Race comorensis has similar calls, but also makes a grating erch-chhh-crkk-chh-chhh-chhh-crrk or a harsher crew-crew-crew.

Taxonomy

In 1760, the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the blue vanga in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected on the island of Madagascar. He used the French name Le pie-griesche bleu de Madagascar and the Latin name Lanius Madagascariensis coeruleus. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition in 1766, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson. One of these was the blue vanga. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Loxia madagascarina and cited Brisson's work. The species is now placed in the genus Cyanolanius that was introduced by the French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte in 1854.

Scientific name

Cyanolanius madagascarinus

Authority

(Linnaeus, 1766)

Order

Passeriformes

Family

Vangidae

Genus

Cyanolanius

Range and habitat

The species is found in northern, eastern, and western Madagascar. It inhabits the midstory and canopy of deciduous dry forests in the western part of its range, and evergreen humid forest in the west. It has also been observed in littoral forests, the adjacent second growth, and even in mangroves. It occurs up to an elevation of 1,200 m (3,900 ft), although it has been reported up to elevations of 1,600 m (5,200 ft).

Migration

Resident species

Behavior

Migration pattern: Resident species.

Conservation

Population trend

unknown