Black-eared Barbet
Psilopogon duvaucelii
A small barbet of dense, broad-leaved forests in lowland and foothill regions. Adult is bright green with a blue face patterned with a complex mosaic of black, red, orange, and yellow. Juvenile is green with a powder-blue face and no dark markings. Like most other barbets, tends to stick to dense canopy and is seldom seen, but its far-carrying song is often heard: a long steady series of single or doubled chirping notes that somewhat resemble a frog’s. Also gives a series of rising peeps: “weet, weet, weet.” Overlaps with Blue-eared Barbet (with which it is treated as one species by some taxonomies) in far southern Thailand and northern Malaysia.
Taxonomy
Bucco duvaucelii was the scientific name proposed by René Lesson in 1830 who described a barbet from Sumatra.The generic name Psilopogon was proposed by Salomon Müller in 1836, initially for a fire-tufted barbet (P. pyrolophus) from Sumatra.In subsequent decades, about 19 generic names were proposed for barbet species, including Megalaima by John Edward Gray in 1849 and Mezobucco by George Ernest Shelley in 1889. Taxonomists used different generic names when describing barbets in collections of natural history museums.<p>Mezzobucco duvaucelii gigantorhinus was proposed by Harry C. Oberholser in 1912 for an adult male barbet with a large bill from Nias Island.Mezzobucco duvaucelii tanamassae was proposed by Rodolphe Meyer de Schauensee in 1929 for a male barbet from the Batu Islands that differed from M. d. gigantorhinus by a more extensive red colour on the breast.<p>Three black-eared barbet subspecies are recognized as valid taxa since 2014:
- Scientific name
- Psilopogon duvaucelii
- Authority
- (Lesson, RP, 1830)
- Order
- Piciformes
- Family
- Megalaimidae
- Genus
- Psilopogon
Range and habitat
- Migration
- Resident species
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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