Giant Coua

About the Giant Coua

The giant coua (Coua gigas) is a bird species from the Coua genus in the cuckoo family that is endemic to the dry forests of western and southern Madagascar. Couas probably originated from a particular Asian ground-cuckoo. The genus Coua contains 10 species, more than any other genus in Madagascar. This species is listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN due to a rapidly decreasing population, resulting from defroestation and hunting pressures.

The giant coua was described by French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1780 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle, which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name, but in 1783, Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Cuculus gigas in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. The giant coua is now placed in the genus Coua that was erected by the Swiss naturalist Heinrich Rudolf Schinz in 1821. The generic name is from koa, the Malagasy word... Wikipedia →