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Drongo
	Hair-crested drongo (D. hottentottus striatus)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Superfamily:	Corvoidea
Family:	Dicruridae; Vigors, 1825
Genus:	Dicrurus; Vieillot, 1816
Type species
	Corvus balicassius (Balicassiao); Linnaeus, 1766

Dicrurus phylogeny

Dicruridae

aeneus

	paradiseus

	annectens

	megarhynchus

	bracteatus

	hottentotus

	balicassius

remifer

waldenii

	aldabranus

	forficatus

	adsimilis

	macrocercus

modestus

	fuscipennis

	leucophaeus

	atripennis

	ludwigii

Cladogram based on a study by Eric Pasquet and colleagues published in 2007.^[1]

The drongos are a family, Dicruridae, of passerine birds of the Old World tropics. The 28 species in the family are placed in a single genus, Dicrurus.

Drongos are mostly black or dark grey, short-legged birds, with an upright stance when perched. They have forked tails and some have elaborate tail decorations. They feed on insects and small birds, which they catch in flight or on the ground. Some species are accomplished mimics and have a variety of alarm calls, to which other birds and animals often respond. They are known to utter fake alarm calls that scare other animals off food, which the drongo then claims.

Taxonomy

The genus Dicrurus was introduced by French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot for the drongos in 1816.^[2] The type species was subsequently designated as the balicassiao (Dicrurus balicassius) by English zoologist George Robert Gray in 1841.^[3]^[4] The name of the genus combines the Ancient Greek words dikros "forked" and oura "tail".^[5] "Drongo" is originally from the indigenous language of Madagascar, where it refers to the crested drongo; it is now used for all members of the family.^[6]

This family now includes only the genus Dicrurus, although Christidis and Boles (2007) expanded the family to include the subfamilies Rhipidurinae (Australasian fantails), Monarchinae (monarch and paradise flycatchers), and Grallininae (magpie larks).^[7]

The family was formerly treated as having two genera, Chaetorhynchus and Dicrurus. The genus Chaetorhynchus contains a single species, the New Guinea-endemic C. papuensis. On the basis of both morphological and genetic differences, it is now placed with the fantails (Rhipiduridae) and renamed from the pygmy drongo to the drongo fantail.^[8]

The genus Dicrurus contains 28 species:^[9]

Common Name	Scientific name	Distribution
Square-tailed drongo	Dicrurus ludwigii	southern Africa.
Sharpe's drongo	Dicrurus sharpei	southern South Sudan and western Kenya to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Nigeria
Shining drongo	Dicrurus atripennis	Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Togo.
Fork-tailed drongo	Dicrurus adsimilis	Gabon, Congo Republic, DRC, Angola, northwestern Zambia, Namibia, Botswana and northwestern South Africa
Velvet-mantled drongo	Dicrurus modestus	Nigeria and Cameroon to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola.
Grande Comore drongo	Dicrurus fuscipennis	Comoros.
Aldabra drongo	Dicrurus aldabranus	Seychelles
Crested drongo	Dicrurus forficatus	Madagascar and Comoros
Mayotte drongo	Dicrurus waldenii	Mayotte.
Black drongo	Dicrurus macrocercus	Iran through Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka east to southern China and Indonesia and accidental visitor of Japan
Ashy drongo	Dicrurus leucophaeus	eastern Afghanistan east to southern China, Ryukyu Islands in southern Japan (particularly Okinawa) and Indonesia.
White-bellied drongo	Dicrurus caerulescens	India and Sri Lanka.
Crow-billed drongo	Dicrurus annectens	Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Bronzed drongo	Dicrurus aeneus	western Uttaranchal eastwards into Indochina and Hainan, the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and northern Borneo
Lesser racket-tailed drongo	Dicrurus remifer	Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Balicassiao	Dicrurus balicassius	Philippines.
Short-tailed drongo	Dicrurus striatus	Philippines.
Hair-crested drongo	Dicrurus hottentottus	Bangladesh, India, and Bhutan through Indochina to China, Indonesia, and Brunei.
Tablas drongo	Dicrurus menagei	Philippines.
Palawan drongo	Dicrurus palawanensis	Palawan.
Sumatran drongo	Dicrurus sumatranus	Sumatra in Indonesia.
Wallacean drongo	Dicrurus densus	Indonesia and East Timor.
Sulawesi drongo	Dicrurus montanus	Sulawesi in Indonesia.
Spangled drongo	Dicrurus bracteatus	Australia, New Guinea, Indonesia
Paradise drongo	Dicrurus megarhynchus	New Ireland in the Bismarck Archipelago, Papua New Guinea.
Andaman drongo	Dicrurus andamanensis	Andaman Islands
Greater racket-tailed drongo	Dicrurus paradiseus	India to Borneo and Java
Sri Lanka drongo	Dicrurus lophorinus	Sri Lanka.

The family Dicruridae is most likely of Indo-Malayan origin, with a colonization of Africa about 15 million years ago (Mya). Dispersal across the Wallace Line into Australasia is estimated to have been more recent, around 6 Mya.^[1]

Characteristics

These insectivorous birds are usually found in open forests or bush. Most are black or dark grey in colour, sometimes with metallic tints. They have long, forked tails; some Asian species have elaborate tail decorations. They have short legs and sit very upright whilst perched, like a shrike. They flycatch or take prey from the ground. Some drongos, especially the greater racket-tailed drongo, are noted for their ability to mimic other birds and even mammals.

Two to four eggs are laid in a nest high in a tree. Despite their small size, they are aggressive and fearless, and will attack much larger species if their nests or young are threatened.

Several species of animals and birds respond to drongos' alarm calls, which often warn of the presence of a predator. Fork-tailed drongos in the Kalahari Desert use alarm calls in the absence of a predator to cause animals to flee and abandon food, which they eat, getting up to 23% of their food this way. They not only use their own alarm calls, but also imitate those of many species, either their victim's or that of another species to which the victim responds. If the call of one species is not effective, perhaps because of habituation, the drongo may try another; 51 different calls are known to be imitated. In one test on pied babblers, the babbler ignored an alarm call repeated three times when no danger was present, but continued to respond to different calls. Researchers have considered the possibility that these drongos possess theory of mind, not fully shown in any animal other than humans.^[10]^[11]^[12]

Insult

The word "drongo" is used in Australian English as a mild form of insult meaning "idiot" or "stupid fellow". This usage derives from an Australian racehorse of the same name (apparently after the spangled drongo, D. bracteatus) in the 1920s that never won despite many places. The word also has been frequently used among friends and can be used in a casual or serious tone.^[13]^[14]^[15]^[16]

Gallery

A greater racket-tailed drongo preening at Khao Yai National Park, Thailand
A greater racket-tailed drongo visiting Erythrina flowers at Satchari National Park in Bangladesh
A lesser racket-tailed drongo incubating at Kaeng Krachan National Park in Thailand

References

^ ^a ^b Pasquet, Eric; Pons, Jean-Marc; Fuchs, Jerome; Cruaud, Corinne; Bretagnolle, Vincent (2007). "Evolutionary history and biogeography of the drongos (Dicruridae), a tropical Old World clade of corvoid passerines". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 45 (1): 158–167. Bibcode:2007MolPE..45..158P. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2007.03.010. PMID 17468015.
^ Vieillot, Louis Pierre (1816). Analyse d'Une Nouvelle Ornithologie Élémentaire (in French). Paris: Deterville/self. p. 41.
^ Gray (1841). A List of the Genera of Birds : with their Synonyma and an Indication of the Typical Species of Each Genus (2nd ed.). London: R. and J.E. Taylor. p. 47.
^ Mayr, Ernst; Greenway, James C. Jr, eds. (1962). Check-list of birds of the world. Vol. 15. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology. p. 138.
^ 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 29 March 2018.
^ Lindsey, Terence (1991). Forshaw, Joseph (ed.). Encyclopaedia of Animals: Birds. London: Merehurst Press. pp. 223–224. ISBN 1-85391-186-0.
^ Christidis, Les; Walter Boles (2008) Systematics and Taxonomy of Australian Birds. Csiro Publishing, Australia. p. 174
^ Irested, Martin; Fuchs, J; Jønsson, KA; Ohlson, JI; Pasquet, E; Ericson, Per G.P. (2009). "The systematic affinity of the enigmatic Lamprolia victoriae (Aves: Passeriformes)—An example of avian dispersal between New Guinea and Fiji over Miocene intermittent land bridges?" (PDF). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 48 (3): 1218–1222. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2008.05.038. PMID 18620871.
^ Gill, Frank; Donsker, David, eds. (2018). "Orioles, drongos, fantails". World Bird List Version 8.1. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 29 March 2018.
^ Flower, T.P. (2014). "Deception by flexible alarm mimicry in an African bird". Science. 344 (6183): 513–516. Bibcode:2014Sci...344..513F. doi:10.1126/science.1249723. PMID 24786078.
^ National Geographic: African Bird Shouts False Alarms to Deceive and Steal, Study Shows Drongos in the Kalahari are masters of deception, 1 May 2014
^ Flower, T. (2010). "Fork-tailed drongos use deceptive mimicked alarm calls to steal food". Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 278 (1711): 1548–1555. doi:10.1098/rspb.2010.1932. PMC 3081750. PMID 21047861.
^ Green, Jonathon (2005). Cassell's Dictionary of Slang. London, UK: Orion Publishing Group. p. 450. ISBN 978-0-304-36636-1.
^ Wannan, Bill (1979) [1970]. "Drongo". Australian Folklore. Lansdowne Press. p. 200. ISBN 0-7018-1309-1.
^ "Drongo". Oxford Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on February 8, 2017. Retrieved 27 February 2017.
^ "Career of Drongo". The News (Adelaide). Vol. IV, no. 568. South Australia. 20 May 1925. p. 3. Retrieved 14 February 2018 – via National Library of Australia.