Tuesday 26 July 2016

Tiong Belacan ( Asian Dollarbird )



The Oriental dollarbird (Eurystomus orientalis) is a bird of the roller family, so named because of the distinctive pale blue or white, coin-shaped spots on its wings. It can be found from Australia to Korea, Japan and India.


The Oriental dollarbird was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1766 in the twelfth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Coracias orientalis. Linnaeus based his description on "Le Rollier des Indes" that had been described and illustrated by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760.[3] The type locality is the island of Java in Indonesia. The Oriental dollarbird is now placed in the genus Eurystomus that was introduced in 1816 by the French ornithologist Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot.

A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2018 found that the azure dollarbird (Eurystomus azureus) was nested in a clade containing subspecies of the Oriental dollarbird. Formerly, some authorities have also considered the broad-billed roller and the azure dollarbird to have been subspecies of the oriental dollarbird. The generic name derives from Ancient Greek eurustomos 'wide-mouthed' and the specific epithet is Latin orientalis 'eastern'.[8] Alternate names for the oriental dollarbird include the Asian dollarbird, dark roller, dollar roller, dollarbird, eastern broad-billed roller and oriental broad-billed roller.


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