Malabar Trogon
Male H. f. malabaricus
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Trogoniformes
Family:	Trogonidae
Genus:	Harpactes
Species:	H. fasciatus
Binomial name
Harpactes fasciatus (Pennant, 1769)
Synonyms
Harpactes malabaricus

The Malabar Trogon (Harpactes fasciatus) is a species of bird in the trogon family. It is found in the forests of Sri Lanka and peninsular India. In India it is mainly found in the Western Ghats, hill forests of central India and in parts of the Eastern Ghats. They are insectivorous and although they are not migratory, they may make seasonal movements in the hill regions.

Description[link]

Female

Like most other trogons, these birds are brightly coloured and sexually dimorphic. The male has a slaty black head and breast with a white border to the black bib separating it from the crimson on the underside. The back is olive-brown to chestnut. The wing coverts are black with fine white vermiculations. They have 12 tail feathers that are graduated.^[2] The central tail-feathers are chestnut with a black tip, with the second and third pairs from the middle having more black than chestnut. The outer three pairs have long white tips. The female lacks the contrasting black and crimson and has only a slightly darker head and breast that shades into the olive brown on the back while the crimson of the underside of the male is replaced by ochre. In both sexes, the beak is bluish as is the skin around the eye. The iris is dark brown and the feet are pale bluish.^[3][4] The nostrils are covered by tufts of filoplumes. The feet are heterodactyl, a feature unique to the trogons, with the inner toe turned backwards.^[5]

Several populations have been named. The central India subspecies legerli, named by Walter Norman Koelz on the basis of a single specimen obtained from the foot of Mahendra Giri in Orissa is not always recognized,^[6] but said to be slightly larger and brighter than malabaricus of the Western Ghats. The nominate race found in the central wet zone of Sri Lanka is smaller and the upperparts are brighter.^[3][7]

Behaviour and ecology[link]

These birds usually perch still, especially when alarmed^[8] and will sometimes clinging laterally to branches. When calling they sometimes raise and lower their tail. The call is a series of guttural or purring notes. The song of the male is a series of percussive kyau calls. The breeding season in India is mainly February to May (before the Monsoons) while it is March to June in Sri Lanka.^[3]

An immature with a scaly orange underparts

When they sit still, the appear hunched. The Hindi name used by hunters is Kafni churi and refers to the hunched neckless appearance as if dressed in a fakir's kafni (robe). The Marathi name is Karna while it is called Kakarne hakki in Kannada^[2] In Kerala it is known as Theekakka (literally "fire-crow").^[9] In Sri Lanka, it is known as moo-koolaney.^[10]

Illustration by John Gould (1854)

Malabar Trogons feed exclusively on insects and fruits have not been noted in their diet unlike in the New World trogons.^[4] Seeds have however been reported in the diet of Sri Lankan specimens.^[10] In the forests of Sri Lanka, they are often found in mixed-species foraging flocks^[11] where they may sometimes be subject to kleptoparasitism by drongos.^[12] A study in Kerala found that they foraged mainly at 5 to 10 m with females tending to forage lower within the canopy. When foraging on bark, they propped themselves using their tail like woodpeckers, especially on decaying tree stumps. They sometimes descend to the ground and search for insects under leaf litter. They will sometimes fly and try to flush prey and then hover to pick up prey. They may also hang upside down to reach prey on vertical tree surfaces. Prey are often mashed or struck on a branch between the mandibles before feeding on them or prior to feeding young. The contact call is a series of about five low intensity que while these were of higher intensity in territorial fights. The alarm call is a churrrr and a similar call is also delivered prior to roosting.^[9] Although their flight is fast, they are reluctant to fly. In the Nilgiri hills they are altitudinal migrants and are found in the higher reaches only during summer.^[13]

The nest is made in rotting trees or stumps that are easy to carve and pulverize using their bills. The male and female take turns to excavate the nest using their bills. It may take about a month to excavate the nest. The floor is made out of the wood powder and no extra lining is added. Two eggs were seen to be the normal clutch in a study in Kerala although older works suggest that the typical clutch is of three eggs.^[14] The eggs are laid with a gap of two days and incubated by both males and females with the females usually incubating at night. The incubation period is about 19 days. The hatchlings are fed mainly caterpillars for the initial period and later provided bugs, flies and orthopterans. The parents do not remove the excreta of the nestlings from the nest. The adults continue to feed the fledged juveniles for nearly 5 to 6 months. They are socially monogamous with pair bonds lasting more than a season.^[9]

Sri Lankan birds have been seen to plunge into water from an overhanging branch to bathe.^[15]

A species of endoparasitic cestode, Triaenorhina burti has been described from the species.^[16]

Status[link]

The species is becoming rarer in many parts of India and it is said to be sensitive to forest fragmentation.^[17] Salim Ali noted it as being common in some areas of the Surat Dangs where it is now rare. One of his records is from Ajwa in Vadodara district which is believed to be a typographical error for Ahwa further south.^[18]

References[link]

Other sources[link]

• Inglis,CM (1944) The nesting of the Malabar Trogon. Jour. Bengal Nat. Hist. Soc. 18:101.

External links[link]

Wikispecies has information related to: Harpactes fasciatus

• Photographs, sounds and video
• Encyclopedia of Life

Look up Malabar or malabar in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Malabar may refer to:

Places[link]

India[link]

• Malabar (Northern Kerala), northern districts of Kerala state
  • North Malabar
• Malabar Coast, the entire south-western coast of the Indian peninsula
• Malabar District, a former district around Malabar (Northern Kerala); 1792–1956
• Dutch Malabar, former Dutch colony; 1661–1795
• Zamorin, aka Kingdom of Malabar or Samoothiri; 12th Century - 1766
• Kingdom of Cheras, South India; 5th Century BCE - 1102 CE
• Malabar Hill, a neighbourhood of Mumbai

Other[link]

• Malabar, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney, Australia
  • Malabar Headland, near Malabar, New South Wales
  • Malabar Battery, a coastal defence battery built in 1943 during World War II at Malabar Headland, Malabar, New South Wales, Australia. It is also known as Boora Point Battery
• Malabar, Indonesia, a town on the island of Java, Indonesia
• Mount Malabar, volcano in Indonesia
• Malabar Island (also called Middle Island), part of the Aldabra atoll in the Seychelles
• Masjid Malabar, a mosque in Singapore
• Malabar, Trinidad and Tobago
• Malabar, Florida, United States
• Malabar Farm State Park in Mansfield, Ohio, United States, the former home of Louis Bromfield

Botany[link]

• Malabathrum or Malabar leaf, classical or medieval name for Cinnamomum tamala
• Malabar spinach, Basella alba, vine in the tropics sometimes used as a vegetable
• Malabar pepper, a variety of Black pepper, Piper nigrum
• Malabar nut, Justicia adhatoda, medicinal plant from Asia
• Malabar chestnut, Pachira aquatica, wetland tree from Central and South America
• Malabar (beans)

Zoology[link]

• Malabar Barbet, a small barbet found in the Western Ghats of India. It was formerly treated as a race of the Crimson-fronted Barbet. It overlaps in some places with the range of the Coppersmith Barbet (Megalaima haemacephala)
• Malabar danio, a tropical fish belonging to the minnow family (Cyprinidae)
• Malabar grouper, an Indo-Pacific species of fish in the family Serranidae
• Malabar Large-spotted Civet, a civet
• Malabar Lark, Galerida malabarica, is a sedentary breeding bird in western India
• Malabar Spiny Dormouse, a species of muroid rodent endemic to the Western Ghats of India
• Malabar Trogon, a species of bird in the trogon family
• Malabar Whistling-thrush, a whistling thrush in the thrush family Turdidae

People[link]

• Malabars, a mistaken appellation for people of South Indian origin and Sri Lankan Tamils used by 19th century westerners
• Malbars, People of Tamil origin in Réunion
• Behramji Malabari (1853–1912), Indian poet, publicist, author, and social reformer best known for his ardent advocacy for the protection of the rights of women
• Malabar Singh Thapa, Nepalese politician, belonging to the Rastriya Janamukti Party

In films and literature[link]

• Malabar, a fictional horse in The Rocking-Horse Winner (1926) by D. H. Lawrence
• Malabar Princess, a 2004 French film directed by Gilles Legrand
• Malabar Wedding, a 2008 Malayalam film directed by the Rajesh-Faisal duo

Other uses[link]

• HMS Malabar
• USS Malabar (AF-37), an Adria-class stores ship acquired by the U.S. Navy for service in World War II. Her task was to carry stores, refrigerated items, and equipment to ships in the fleet, and to remote stations and staging areas
• SS Malabar, a series of steamships, including SS Malabar, also SS Malabar 1914, 1925, 1938 and 1945
• Malabar United FC, a football club, which is registered in Kochi, but has its training base in Kozhikode, based in Kerala state of India
• Malabar (chewing gum), a bubble gum produced in France by Cadbury
• Malabar Christian College, a college run by the Protestant Church of South India
• 754 Malabar, an asteroid discovered by August Kopff
• Malabar (typeface), a serif font family
• Exercise Malabar, a multilateral naval exercise involving the United States, India, Japan, Australia, and Singapore
• Malabar Branch, a branch library of the Los Angeles Public Library located in the Boyle Heights section of Los Angeles, California
• Malabar Cancer Centre, established at Kodiyeri near Thalassery in Kerala state, South India is an autonomous centre under the Government of Kerala
• Malabar Express, a train service in India, named after the Malabar Coast
• Malabar Hill Club, a sports club based in Mumbai, India
• Malabar Migration, the large-scale migration from Central-South Kerala to northern regions of Kerala called Malabar in the 20th century
• Malabar matthi curry, a dish where the body of a sardine is semi-stewed in a Kerala-style curry with assorted vegetables
• Malabar rainforests, one or more distinct ecoregions recognized by biogeographers
• Monsooned Malabar, a variety of dry processed coffee beans
• Malabar Police

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