Critically Endangered
Black-hooded Coucal
Centropus steerii
Black-hooded Coucal is a bird in the family Cuculidae (order Cuculiformes) — Centropus steerii, recorded as Critically Endangered.
Appearance
While there are no sexual dimorphism in terms of plumage, females are around 20% larger than males.
Range and habitat
It is endemic to Mindoro in the Philippines and is one of the most endangered birds in the country and is the only critically endangered coucal in the world. It is threatened by habitat loss and trapping.
It occurs in a few protected areas such as the Mount Calavite Wildlife Sanctuary, Mounts Iglit–Baco Natural Park, Mount Halcon and most importantly the Sablayan Penal Colony that is the known stronghold for this species.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
Its diet has not yet been recorded at all but presumed to have the typical coucal diet of mostly insects and occasionally small reptiles and amphibians. There is no information about its breeding habits and nesting.
In crisis
It is threatened by habitat loss with Mindoro having a great loss of forest in recent decades. The lowland forest that does remain is highly fragmented and it is believed that at the current rate of deforestation all forest may disappear by 2020–2030. The species's genetic viability may be at risk given the small size and fragmented nature of remaining populations.
As a consequence, it is now classified as critically endangered by the IUCN with an estimated population of just 50 - 249 mature individuals. The Zoological Society of London has described the bird as an EDGE species, listed as the top 21, based on evolutionary distinctiveness and its risk of extinction even so, this coucal's population and habitat continue to decrease and shrink closer to extinction.
Black-hooded Coucal 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 Black-hooded Coucal, Wikidata item Q1264610. 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.
