Description
Like most other trogons, these birds are brightly coloured and sexually dimorphic. The male has a slaty black head and breast with a white border to the black bib separating it from the crimson on the underside. The back is olive-brown to chestnut. The wing coverts are black with fine white vermiculations. They have 12 tail feathers that are graduated. The central tail-feathers are chestnut with a black tip, with the second and third pairs from the middle having more black than chestnut. The outer three pairs have long white tips. The female lacks the contrasting black and crimson and has only a slightly darker head and breast that shades into the olive brown on the back while the crimson of the underside of the male is replaced by ochre. In both sexes, the beak is bluish as is the skin around the eye. The iris is dark brown and the feet are pale bluish. The nostrils are covered by tufts of filoplumes. The feet are heterodactyl, a feature unique to the trogons, with the inner toe turned backwards.
Several populations have been named. The central India subspecies legerli, named by Walter Norman Koelz on the basis of a single specimen obtained from the foot of Mahendra Giri in Orissa is not always recognized, but said to be slightly larger and brighter than malabaricus of the Western Ghats. The nominate race found in the central wet zone of Sri Lanka is smaller and the upperparts are brighter.
Read more about this topic: Malabar Trogon
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