Whistling long-tailed cuckoo

The whistling long-tailed cuckoo (Cercococcyx lemaireae) is a species of cuckoo in the family Cuculidae. It is distributed in West Africa and western Central Africa, from west of the Bakossi Mountains in Cameroon west to Sierra Leone.[1][2]

Whistling long-tailed cuckoo
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Class: Aves
Order: Cuculiformes
Family: Cuculidae
Genus: Cercococcyx
Species:
C. lemaireae
Binomial name
Cercococcyx lemaireae
Boesman & Collar, 2019

It was formerly thought to be a disjunct western population of the dusky long-tailed cuckoo (C. mechowi), which it is morphologically indistinguishable from, but it was later split from C. mechowi on account of its different vocalizations. The whistling long-tailed cuckoo has two distinct songs: one described by Nigel James Collar and Peter Boesman as a song of "three rising notes" (phoneticized as "hu hee wheeu") and a Halcyon kingfisher-esque song described by Collar and Boesman as "plaintive whinnying" (phoneticized as "tiutiutiutiutittiui-tiu-tiu-tiu"). On the other hand, the dusky long-tailed cuckoo has two different songs: a song described by Collar and Boesman as "three similar, less melodious notes" (phoneticized as "wheet-wheet-wheet") and a fast, descending song (phoneticized as "wheewheewheewheewhee"). These song differences led to the description of C. lemaireae as a distinct species.[2][3]

References
  1. BirdLife International. (2020). "Cercococcyx lemaireae". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2020: e.T181366408A181444660. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2020-3.RLTS.T181366408A181444660.en. Retrieved 5 April 2023.
  2. Boesman, Peter & Collar, N. J. (June 2019). "Two undescribed species of bird from West Africa". Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club. 139 (2): 147–159. doi:10.25226/bboc.v139i2.2019.a7.
  3. Anderson, Natali (July 9, 2019). "Two New Bird Species Discovered in West Africa". Sci-News. Retrieved 2019-07-21.


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