This Secondary Area includes the lowlands of the state of Sabah in East Malaysia, in the northern part of the island of Borneo (see map, p. 484). It is defined by the range of White-fronted Falconet Microhierax latifrons, which is found in lowland and hill forest, forest edge and agricultural land below c.1,200 m (MacKinnon and Phillipps 1993). White-crowned Shama Copsychus stricklandii, a restricted-range bird which occurs in lowland forest in this Secondary Area (but also ranges into northern Kalimantan), was treated as a full species by Sibley and Monroe (1990, 1993) but is here considered to be a form of the more widespread White-rumped Shama C. malabaricus following Andrew (1992). The Secondary Area is adjacent to the Bornean mountains (EBA 157), but the birds of that EBA mainly occur in higher-altitude montane habitats. The main threat to the Secondary Area is deforestation, as a result of logging and forest fires (Collins et al. 1991), but M. latifrons appears able to adapt to disturbed habitats, and there are up to 18 protected areas in Sabah which include areas of lowland rain forest (IUCN 1992c). The lowland rain forests of Borneo support several widespread threatened species (Collar et al. 1994).

Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Endemic Bird Area factsheet: Sabah lowlands. Downloaded from https://datazone.birdlife.org/eba/factsheet/397 on 22/11/2024.