Critically Endangered
Banggai Crow
Corvus unicolor
Banggai Crow is a perching bird in the family Corvidae (order Passeriformes) — Corvus unicolor, recorded as Critically Endangered and tied to Indonesia.
Size
The Banggai crow, known as kuuyak in the Banggai language, is a member of the crow family from Banggai regency in the province of Central Sulawesi in Indonesia.
The Banggai crow is a small crow, some 39 cm (15 in) long and completely black with a pale iris and a short tail.
Published measurements include mass about 175.
Range and habitat
It was feared extinct, but was finally rediscovered during surveys on Peleng Island off the southeast coast of Sulawesi by Indonesian ornithologist Mochamad Indrawan in 2007 and 2008. For more than a century, it was known from only two specimens taken from an unknown island in the Banggai Archipelago - probably in 1884/1885. During a survey conducted between 2007 and 2008 and partially financed by the Zoological Society for the Conservation of Species and Populations (Germany), it was repeatedly seen on Peleng Island and Indonesian ornithologist Mochamad Indrawan caught and photographed two individuals.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Habits
Perching birds hold with three toes forward and one back. A named island starling or leafbird in this catalog is a wild population, not a cage type.
In crisis
It is listed as critically endangered by IUCN. Visits to the archipelago in 1991 and 1996 yielded no unequivocal records of the species, leading some to believe it was extinct. The total population is estimated at 500 mature individuals, living in mountain forest at altitudes above 500 m (1,600 ft).
The decline of the Banggai crow is thought to be primarily due to habitat loss and degradation through agriculture and extraction. This proved to be incorrect and the status was corrected to Critically Endangered in the 2007 Red List.
Banggai Crow is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Banggai Crow, Wikidata item Q795512. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
