Red-tailed Vanga

Open encyclopedia reference

The red-tailed vanga (Calicalicus madagascariensis) is a species of bird in the family Vangidae.

It is endemic to Madagascar.

Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forests and subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests.

In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the red-tailed vanga in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in Madagascar. He used the French name La petite pie-griesche de Madagascar and the Latin Lanius Madagascariensis minor. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson. One of these was the red-tailed vanga. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Lanius madagascariensis and cited Brisson's work. The species is now placed in the genus Calicalicus that was introduced by the French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte in 1854. The species is monotypic.

Wikipedia contributors, Red-tailed vanga; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T05:37:02.899995+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.

Identity & source status

Scientific name

Calicalicus madagascariensis (Linnaeus, 1766)

Name authority

(Linnaeus, 1766)

Common name

Red-tailed Vanga

Rank

species

Accepted status

accepted

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Aves

Order

Passeriformes

Family

Vangidae

Genus

Calicalicus

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. orderPasseriformes
10. familyVangidae
11. genusCalicalicus Bonaparte, 1854
12. speciesCalicalicus madagascariensis (Linnaeus, 1766)

Close classified relatives

No other member of this genus is present in the selected snapshot.

Browse 34 records assigned to Vangidae.

Names & synonyms

Names explicitly linked to this accepted taxon in the source. Synonymy can change with revision.

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=558987 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. A suitable sourced image remains to be added.

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:68TYC. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.