Wynaad Laughingthrush

About the Wynaad Laughingthrush

The Wayanad laughingthrush (Pterorhinus delesserti) is a species of laughingthrush in the family Leiothrichidae. It is endemic to the Western Ghats south of Goa in India. These laughingthrushes move in groups in dense forests, producing loud calls but tend to be hard to spot in the undergrowth. They have brown upperparts, a white throat, a broad black mask through the eye and a heavy bill with pale yellow on the lower mandible. Despite the name, derived from the Wayanad region, this species has a wider range than the four other south Indian species of laughingthrush that are restricted to the higher elevation hills.

The Wayanad laughingthrush was described by the British physician and naturalist Thomas Jerdon in 1839 and given the binomial name Crateropus delesserti. The specific epithet was chosen to honour the French naturalist Adolphe Delessert who had collected specimens from near Kotagiri in the state of Tamil Nadu, India. Another description by the French ornithologist Frédéric de Lafresnaye was published in 1840.

The generic placement of this species has varied over time and it has been placed in the past under Dryonastes and Garrulax. A 2012 phylogenetic study... Wikipedia →