Podargo di Giava

Identificazione

The species grows to a length of about 22 cm (9 in). The upper parts are a mixture of brown, grey, buff and white, spotted with black. The scapulars have several large oval white spots. There is a white stripe above the eye and a white semi-collar. The underparts are brown with buff, cinnamon and white speckling. The flanks and belly are generally paler, with some brown barring. Female birds are rather tawnier and brighter than males, and juveniles are similar to the adults but paler and duller. The beak is brown, the iris yellow and the legs brown.

Tassonomia

The Javan frogmouth was first described in 1821 by the American naturalist Thomas Horsfield as Batrachostomus javensis. The species was later split by Sibley and Monroe into B. javensis and B. affinis in 1990 and 1993, and in 1997, B. pygmaeus, was described by Alviola as being a species "new to science". However, Holyoak in 1999 and Dickinson in 2003, synonymized these new species with B. javensis.

Nome scientifico

Batrachostomus javensis

Autorità

(Horsfield, 1821)

Ordine

Caprimulgiformi

Famiglia

Podargidi

Genere

Batrachostomus

Areale e habitat

Migrazione

Resident species

Comportamento

Like other frogmouths, this species is nocturnal and crepuscular. It feeds on such insects as butterflies and moths, ants, grasshoppers, cicadas, beetles, earwigs, cockroaches, caterpillars and small molluscs. Food may be picked up from the ground or gleaned from foliage and branches, or perhaps caught on the wing. It roosts fairly close to the ground, singly or in pairs, crosswise on small branches. It sometimes perches at the top of tall trees during the night.<p>The nest is built on a low, level branch about 4.5 cm (1.8 in) in diameter and is a very shallow cup made of moss, downy feathers and bark fragments. One or two oval white eggs are laid and are incubated by the parent bird lying along the branch.

Conservazione

Tendenza della popolazione

stable