Bougainville Moustached Kingfisher

Open encyclopedia reference

The moustached kingfisher (Actenoides bougainvillei), also called Bougainville moustached kingfisher, is a species of bird in the family Alcedinidae. It is endemic to Bougainville Island in Papua New Guinea. An estimated 1,300–7,000 mature individuals are left. Their natural habitats are subtropical or tropical, moist, lowland forests and subtropical or tropical, moist, montane forests; they nest in tree holes. They are threatened by habitat loss and introduced predators. The Guadalcanal moustached kingfisher was previously lumped together with A. bougainvillei, but is now regarded as a separate species. It was first described in 1904, and in the late 1930s, a dozen specimens were collected in southern Bougainville. In 1941, A. b. excelsus was described on the basis of a single specimen from Guadalcanal, and later in 1953, two more specimens were obtained. In 2015, a male specimen was killed and collected by a team from the American Museum of Natural History headed by Christopher Filardi. In 2024, one pair was recorded by a birdwatching tour group on Bougainville after ten days of searching.

Wikipedia contributors, Moustached kingfisher; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T12:24:57.065371+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.

Identity & source status

Scientific name

Actenoides bougainvillei (Rothschild, 1904)

Name authority

(Rothschild, 1904)

Common name

Bougainville Moustached Kingfisher

Rank

species

Accepted status

accepted

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Aves

Order

Coraciiformes

Family

Alcedinidae

Genus

Actenoides

Extinction status

Recorded extant

Classification family tree

Nested taxonomic groups from the source. This is not a direct-ancestor chain, a dated evolutionary tree or a phylogenetic reconstruction.

1. domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
2. kingdomAnimalia
3. phylumChordata
4. subphylumVertebrata
5. infraphylumGnathostomata
6. parvphylumOsteichthyes
7. megaclassTetrapoda
8. classAves
9. orderCoraciiformes
10. familyAlcedinidae
11. subfamilyHalcyoninae
12. genusActenoides Bonaparte, 1850
13. speciesActenoides bougainvillei (Rothschild, 1904)

Close classified relatives

These entries share the source’s genus, Actenoides. They are not necessarily the closest relatives established by molecular evidence.

Browse 77 records assigned to Alcedinidae.

Documented distribution

Source distribution statements, not a complete range map. A listed locality is not necessarily a place of origin.

Source literature & publication evidence

References attached to this source record, including nomenclatural citations where supplied. This is a selected bibliography; abbreviated citations remain in the source’s form.

1. https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=554618 Source fields: Taxon.tsv dwc:namePublishedIn, Taxon.tsv dcterms:references

Origins, evidence & remaining research

Name authority and publication references document nomenclature where the source supplies it. They do not establish evolutionary origins or the earliest fossil occurrence.

Specimen-level evidence, morphology, ecological research, phylogenetic studies, a comprehensive bibliography and a located literary passage have not yet been compiled for this record.

Dataset citation & attribution

This exact taxon in ChecklistBank · Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11

Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11; dataset 316321; doi:10.48580/dgz5n. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Retrieved 5 October 2026.

Stable key: col:64NVG. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.