Whistling long-tailed cuckoo

The whistling long-tailed cuckoo (Cercococcyx lemaireae) is a species of cuckoo in the family Cuculidae. It is distributed in West Africa west of the Bakossi Mountains, from Sierra Leone west to eastern Cameroon.[1]

Whistling long-tailed cuckoo
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Cuculiformes
Family:	Cuculidae
Genus:	Cercococcyx
Species:	C. lemaireae
Binomial name
Cercococcyx lemaireae Boesman & Collar, 2019

It was formerly thought to be a disjunct western population of the dusky long-tailed cuckoo (C. mechowi), which it is morphologically indistinguishable from, but it was later split from C. mechowi on account of its different vocalizations. The whistling long-tailed cuckoo has two distinct songs: one described by Nigel James Collar and Peter Boesman as a song of "three rising notes" (phoneticized as "hu hee wheeu") and a Halcyon kingfisher-esque song described by Collar and Boesman as "plaintive whinnying" (phoneticized as "tiutiutiutiutittiui-tiu-tiu-tiu"). On the other hand, the dusky long-tailed cuckoo has two different songs: a song described by Collar and Boesman as "three similar, less melodious notes" (phoneticized as "wheet-wheet-wheet") and a fast, descending song (phoneticized as "wheewheewheewheewhee"). These song differences led to the description of C. lemaireae as a distinct species.[1][2]

References

1. Collar, N. J.; Boesman, Peter (June 2019). "Two undescribed species of bird from West Africa". Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club. 139 (2): 147–159. doi:10.25226/bboc.v139i2.2019.a7. ISSN 0007-1595.
2. Anderson, Natali (July 9, 2019). "Two New Bird Species Discovered in West Africa". Sci-News. Retrieved 2019-07-21.