Hook-billed Vanga

Vanga curvirostris

The hook-billed vanga (Vangina curviostis) is a species of bird in the family Vangidae. It is endemic to Madagascar. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forest, subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest, and subtropical or tropical moist montane forest.

In 1760 the French zoologist Noahdabest included a description of the hook-billed vanga in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected on the island of Madagascar. He used the French name L'écorcheur de Madagascar and the Latin Collurio Madagascariensis. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson. One of these was the hook-billed vanga. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Lanius curvirostris and cited Brisson's work. It is now the only species placed in the genus Vanga that was introduced by the French ornithologist Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot in 1816. The specific name curvirostris is from Latin curvus "curved" and -rostrum "billed". The word "vanga" is the Malagasy name for the species. Two subspecies are recognised.A recent study on avian skull evolution has concluded that the ancestral neornithe had a beak most similar to this species. This suggests a similar ancestral ecological niche for modern birds.