White-breasted Woodswallow

The white-breasted woodswallow (Artamus leucorynchus) is a medium-sized passerine bird which breeds from the Andaman Islands east through Indonesia and northern Australia. The name "woodswallow" is a misnomer as they are not closely related to true swallows. Instead, they belong to the family Artamidae, which also includes butcherbirds, currawongs and the Australian magpie. == Taxonomy == The white-breasted woodswallow was formally described in 1771 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus. He placed it with the shrikes in the genus Lanius and coined the binomial name Lanius leucoryn[chus]. His account was based on "la pie-griesche de Manille" that had been described and illustrated in 1760 by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson. Brisson had examined a specimen collected in Manila on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. The specific epithet is derived from the Ancient Greek words leukos meaning "white", and rhynchos meaning "bill". The white-breasted woodswallow is now one of 11 species placed in the genus Artamus that was introduced in 1816 by Louis Pierre Vieillot. Nine subspecies are recognised: A. l. pelewensis Finsch, 1876 – Palau (west Caroline Islands, west Micronesia) A. l. leucorynchus (Linnaeus, 1771) – Philippines to Natuna Islands (northwest of Borneo), Borneo and islands off…