Sri Lanka Barbet (Psilopogon rubricapillus) - BirdLife species factsheet

Sri Lanka Barbet Psilopogon rubricapillus

Current view: Data table and detailed info

Taxonomy

Taxonomic note

Psilopogon rubricapillus and P. malabaricus (del Hoyo and Collar 2014) were previously placed in the genus Megalaima and lumped as M. rubricapillus following Sibley and Monroe (1990, 1993), with the gender agreement following David and Gosselin (2002a).

Taxonomic source(s)
del Hoyo, J., Collar, N.J., Christie, D.A., Elliott, A. and Fishpool, L.D.C. 2014. HBW and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World. Volume 1: Non-passerines. Lynx Edicions BirdLife International, Barcelona, Spain and Cambridge, UK.

IUCN Red List criteria met and history

Red List criteria met

Critically Endangered	Endangered	Vulnerable
-	-	-

Red List history

Year	Category	Criteria
2024	Least Concern
2016	Least Concern
2014	Least Concern
2012	Not Recognised
2008	Not Recognised
2004	Not Recognised
2000	Not Recognised
1994	Not Recognised
1988	Not Recognised

Species attributes

Migratory status	not a migrant	Forest dependency	medium
Land-mass type		Average mass	38 g

Range

	Estimate	Data quality
Extent of Occurrence (breeding/resident)	62,300 km²
Severely fragmented?	no	-

Population

	Estimate	Data quality	Derivation	Year of estimate
Population size	unknown	-	-	-
Population trend	decreasing	-	suspected	-
Generation length	3.65 years	-	-	-

Population justification: The global population size has not been quantified, but the species is reported to be common in the wet lowlands and more local in the dry zone (del Hoyo et al. 2002). This species is considered to have a medium dependency on forest habitat, and tree cover is estimated to have declined by 4.4% within its mapped range over the past 10 years (Global Forest Watch 2022, using Hansen et al. [2013] data and methods disclosed therein). Therefore, as a precautionary measure, it is tentatively suspected that this loss of cover may have led to a decline of between 1-19% in the species' population size over the same time frame.

Trend justification: .

Country/territory distribution

Country/Territory	Presence	Origin	Resident	Breeding visitor	Non-breeding visitor	Passage migrant
Sri Lanka	extant	native	yes

Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBA)

Country/Territory	IBA Name

Habitats & altitude

Habitat (level 1)	Habitat (level 2)	Importance	Occurrence
Artificial/Terrestrial	Arable Land	suitable	resident
Artificial/Terrestrial	Plantations	suitable	resident
Artificial/Terrestrial	Rural Gardens	suitable	resident
Forest	Subtropical/Tropical Dry	suitable	resident
Forest	Subtropical/Tropical Moist Lowland	major	resident
Wetlands (inland)	Permanent Rivers/Streams/Creeks (includes waterfalls)	suitable	resident
Altitude	0 - 1300 m	Occasional altitudinal limits

Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Species factsheet: Sri Lanka Barbet Psilopogon rubricapillus. Downloaded from https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/sri-lanka-barbet-psilopogon-rubricapillus on 23/11/2024.
Recommended citation for factsheets for more than one species: BirdLife International (2024) IUCN Red List for birds. Downloaded from https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/search on 23/11/2024.