Pacific Koel

About the Pacific Koel

The Pacific koel (Eudynamys orientalis), also known as the eastern koel or formerly common koel, is a species of cuckoo in the family Cuculidae. In northern Australia, it is colloquially known as the rainbird or stormbird.

The Pacific koel was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1766 in the twelfth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with the cuckoos in the genus Cuculus and coined the binomial name Cuculus orientalis. Linnaeus based his account on the "Le Coucou noir des Indes" that had been described and illustrated in 1760 by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in his multi-volume work Ornithologie. The type locality is Ambon Island, one of the Maluku Islands of Indonesia. The Pacific koel is now placed in the genus Eudynamys that was introduced in 1827 by the naturalists Nicholas Vigors and Thomas Horsfield. It was formerly considered to be conspecific with the Asian koel (Eudynamys scolopaceus) and the black-billed koel (Eudynamys melanorhynchus).

Eight subspecies are recognised: E. o. orientalis (Linnaeus, 1766) – central Moluccas E. o. picatus Müller, S, 1843 – Sumba to Timor (Lesser Sunda Islands) and south Moluccas... Wikipedia →