The giant babax ( Pterorhinus waddelli) is a species of bird in the laughingthrush family Leiothrichidae, found in India and Tibet. It prefers the low bushes at the edge of the southern Tibetan plateau,
Description
It is a bulky, long-tailed brown bird with a curved bill and dark streaks.
On average, it is long.
Its vocalizations vary between melodic flute-like notes and harsh jabbering ones.
Threats
It is threatened by
habitat loss.
Diet
Its diet includes
(
Lepidoptera and
Fly) and
Berry in the
summer, and crop seeds, berries, and plant
Rhizome in the
winter.
Breeding
Its breeding season lasts from May to July.
It mainly nests in
(
Salix longistamina),
Rosa sericea,
Populus szechuanica,
Cotoneaster microphyllus, and
elm trees.
It prefers to nest in areas dense with trees, close to water but far from human settlements.
Taxonomy
The giant babax was described by the English ornithologist Henry Dresser in 1905 from a specimen collected by the British explorer
Laurence Waddell in the
Yarlung Tsangpo river valley in Tibet.
Based on the results of a comprehensive molecular phylogenetic study of the Leiothrichidae that was published in 2018, the giant babax was placed in the resurrected genus
Pterorhinus.
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