Emerald starling
species of bird
The emerald starling (Lamprotornis iris), also known as the iris glossy starling, is a species of starling occurring in West Africa, where it inhabits lowlands and savanna of Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea and Sierra Leone. It was formerly sometimes treated in its own monotypic genus Coccycolius, but genetic studies have now shown it to be a typical member of the glossy starlings in the genus Lamprotornis.
Description
It is a medium-small sized starling, at 21 cm long similar in size to the common starling. It has an iridescent metallic green crown, upper body, wings and tail. The ear-coverts and underparts are metallic purple. The bill and the legs are black. Both sexes are similar; the juveniles are glossy olive-green above, but duller, matt greyish-brown below, lacking the iridescent gloss of the adults there.
Behaviour
The emerald starling feeds on figs, Haronga berries and other fruit, seeds, ants and other small insects. The cup-shaped nest is built in a tree cavity. The male and female cooperate in building the nest from leaves, and both bring food to chicks after they hatch.
“Emerald starling” enters the record as species of bird. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Emerald, starling and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q27075602. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Emerald starling” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.