Critically Endangered
Nias Hill Myna
Gracula robusta
Nias Hill Myna is a perching bird in the family Sturnidae (order Passeriformes) — Gracula robusta, recorded as Critically Endangered and tied to Indonesia.
Appearance
This is a stocky jet-black myna, with bright orange-yellow patches of naked skin and fleshy wattles on the side of its head and nape. It is overall green-glossed black plumage, purple-tinged on the head and neck. Its large, white wing patches are obvious in flight, but mostly covered when the bird is sitting.
At about 29 cm length, it is somewhat larger than the common myna (Acridotheres tristis).
Range and habitat
Its range continues east through Southeast Asia northeastwards to southern China, and via Thailand southeastwards across northern Indonesia to Palawan in the Philippines. It is virtually extinct in Bangladesh due to habitat destruction and overexploitation for the pet trade. A feral population on Christmas Island has likewise disappeared.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands subspecies G. R. Andamanensis and (if valid) G. R. Halibrecta, described as "exceedingly common" in 1874, qualified as Near Threatened in 1991. The former is no longer ubiquitous in the Nicobar Islands and the latter has a very limited range.
Habitat labels include forest.
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
In the central part of its range, G. R. Intermedia populations have declined markedly, especially in Thailand, that supplied much of the thriving market. In 1992, Thailand had the common hill myna put on CITES Appendix III, to safeguard its population. This protects the mynas from habitat destruction while also controlling the local population.
Nias Hill Myna 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 Nias Hill Myna, Wikidata item Q3504550. 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.
