The blue-crowned laughingthrush was formerly placed in the genus Garrulax but following the publication of a comprehensive molecular phylogenetic study in 2018, it was moved to the resurrected genus Pterorhinus.[3][4] The specific name was chosen to honour the French missionary to China Frédéric Courtois (1860–1928).[5]
The nominate subspecies was only rediscovered in 2000, in Wuyuan County, Jiangxi, but remains very rare with a total wild population of approximately 200 individuals. The subspecies G. courtoisi simaoensis has not been encountered in the wild since the type specimens were collected in Simao, Yunnan in 1956. More than 100 blue-crowned laughingthrushes are kept in zoos (where part of a captive breeding program) and private aviculture, but it is unclear what subspecies they belong to. A recent review failed to support the distinction of two separate subspecies, leading to simaoensis being treated as a synonym of the nominate in Handbook of the Birds of the World.
This bird was erroneously listed as a species of least concern in the 2006 IUCN Red List. Actually, it seems close to extinction at least in the wild, and its status was thus corrected to critically endangered in the 2007 Red List issue.[6][1]
^Cibois, A.; Gelang, M.; Alström, P.; Pasquet, E.; Fjeldså, J.; Ericson, P.G.P.; Olsson, U. (2018). "Comprehensive phylogeny of the laughingthrushes and allies (Aves, Leiothrichidae) and a proposal for a revised taxonomy". Zoologica Scripta. 47 (4): 428–440. doi:10.1111/zsc.12296. S2CID51883434.
^Jobling, J.A. (2018). del Hoyo, J.; Elliott, A.; Sargatal, J.; Christie, D.A.; de Juana, E. (eds.). "Key to Scientific Names in Ornithology". Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions. Retrieved 18 January 2019.
