This peculiar starling is confined to the highlands of Mindanao.
Genus EULABES Cuvier, 1817.
Bill shorter than head and very stout; culmen strongly curved; nasal feathers antrorse, but short and not concealing the nostrils; feathers on head very short, those of lores and a broad band of feathers on each side of crown and occiput pile-like; a bare space below each eye; a bare space behind each eye ending in a fleshy flap, or wattle, on nape; tail square, less than one-half the wing and not extending beyond the very stout legs and feet; plumage black, glossed with blue and purple; a white bar on the wing.
736. EULABES PALAWANENSIS Sharpe.
PALAWAN WATTLED MYNA.[103]
- Eulabes palawanensis Sharpe, Ibis (1888), 202; McGregor and Worcester, Hand-List (1906), 109.
- Mainatus palawanensis Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1890), 13, 104.
Balabac (Everett); Calamianes (Bourns & Worcester); Palawan (Steere, Everett, Lempriere, Whitehead, Platen, Steere Exp., Bourns & Worcester, Celestino, White).
Adult (sexes alike).—Black, most of the plumage with a slight green gloss, but the gloss slightly bluish on throat, breast, and hind-neck, purplish on mantle; second to seventh primaries with a wide white band, but on the second confined to the inner web and sometimes indicated by a small white spot on the outer web of the eighth. A male from Palawan measures: Wing, 162; tail, 75; culmen from base, 30; bill from nostril, 19; tarsus, 36. A female from the same locality, wing, 168; tail, 74; culmen from base, 32; bill from nostril, 21; tarsus, 36.
“This wattled myna is common in Palawan and extremely abundant in the Calamianes Islands. It is a very noisy bird, and some of its cries are astonishingly human. Iris very dark brown; legs and feet bright yellow; nails yellow at base, white at tip; bill orange-red, yellow at tip; bare flesh of head bright yellow. Five males from the Calamianes average: Length, 281; wing, 106; tail, 77; tarsus, 34; middle toe with claw, 36. Four females from the same locality, length, 273; tail, 73; culmen, 30; tarsus, 33; middle toe with claw, 33.” (Bourns and Worcester MS.)