Sumatran ground cuckoo

Sumatran ground cuckoo
Conservation status
Critically Endangered (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Cuculiformes
Family:	Cuculidae
Genus:	Carpococcyx
Species:	C. viridis
Binomial name
Carpococcyx viridis Salvadori, 1879

The Sumatran ground cuckoo (Carpococcyx viridis) is a large, about 55 cm (22 in) long, long-tailed terrestrial species of cuckoo. It has a green upperparts plumage with black crown, green bill and legs, bluish green bare orbital skin and brown below. It was formerly considered conspecific with the Bornean ground cuckoo. An Indonesian endemic, the Sumatran ground cuckoo is distributed to rainforests of southern Sumatra. Before it was rediscovered and photographed in 1997 by Andjar Rafiastanto, this elusive species was known only from eight specimens.

Status and conservation

Due to ongoing habitat loss and small population size, the Sumatran ground cuckoo is evaluated as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

In 2006, a camera-trap surveying for tigers close to Kerinci Seblat National Park took an image of the Sumatran ground cuckoo, only the second time it had been recorded in the last ninety years. The current population is estimated at less than 250.

In 2007, its call was recorded for the first time according to New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society in a statement released February 26. The call, described as a two-syllable shriek, was recorded by WCS biologists after a trapper handed them a bird he had caught.

External links

• BirdLife species factsheet for Carpococcyx viridis
• Tiger trap goes cuckoo article at BirdLife International
• Sumatran ground-cuckoo (Carpococcyx viridis) media at ARKive
• Carpococcyx viridis on Avibase
• Sumatran ground-cuckoo videos, photos, and sounds at the Internet Bird Collection
• Interactive range map of Carpococcyx viridis at IUCN Red List maps
• Audio recordings of Sumatran ground cuckoo on Xeno-canto.