Stachyris roberti
The Cachar Wedge-billed Babbler, *Stachyris roberti*, is a small, enigmatic passerine belonging to the family Timaliidae, renowned for its distinctive and highly specialized bill. Measuring approximately 14-15 cm in length, this babbler is characterized by its short, stout, and conspicuously wedge-shaped bill, which sets it apart from most other babblers. Its plumage is generally rather drab, featuring a dark, almost blackish-grey head that contrasts subtly with a paler throat, often finely s...
Found in subtropical and tropical moist lowland and montane forests, inhabiting dense undergrowth, bamboo thickets, and overgrown clearings, typically at elevations between 300 and 1,800 meters.
Primarily insectivorous, feeding on beetles, ants, grubs, and other small invertebrates, which it gleans and probes from dense vegetation and bamboo.
The Cachar Wedge-billed Babbler is a highly secretive and often difficult-to-observe bird, typically foraging low down in dense vegetation, often near the ground. Its specialized, robust bill is used to probe into crevices, leaf litter, and notably, the internodes of bamboo stems to extract insec...
The Cachar Wedge-billed Babbler is a resident species found across a relatively restricted range in Southeast Asia and Northeast India. Its distribution extends from the Cachar Hills of Northeast India (Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram) eastward into eastern Bangladesh, western and northern Myan...
Near Threatened
- The Cachar Wedge-billed Babbler's scientific name 'roberti' honors Dr. Robert Tytler, who collected the first specimen in the Cachar Hills. - Its uniquely robust, wedge-shaped bill is an extreme adaptation for probing into bamboo stems, a foraging strategy shared by very few other bird species....