Batrachostomus poliolophus
Silhouette: Matt Wilkins · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~50% in a week ~80%
The Sumatran frogmouth (Batrachostomus poliolophus), also known as the short-tailed frogmouth and the pale-faced frogmouth, is a nocturnal bird belonging to the family Podargidae. It is endemic to the island of Sumatra in Indonesia.
B. poliolophus has a large, arched bill with a light-brown to straw-yellow color. Its face is adorned with bristles, mainly on the forehead and ear coverts. It can be distinguished from other frogmouths by its tail, which is considerably shorter than its wings. It is sexually dimorphic. Males are mostly a dull dark brown with some black speckling and have a collar of white to pale buff feathers. Their underside is a lighter brown with black bars. A pattern of cream-buff spots covers the throat, sometimes extending to the breast and belly. The plumage of females is mainly rufous-brown with faint black barring. Unlike the males, the underside is generally of a similar color to the wings. The greater coverts and the upper breast sometimes exhibit white spots. The colar is variable, but generally similar to that of males.
This species is one of twelve others in its genus. The genus Batrachostomus is one of the three in the frogmouth... Wikipedia →
Call0:06
Indonesia · 2009
© Fabian Ducry & David Marques · XC90910 · CC BY-NC-ND 2.5
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kerinci Seblat National Park | 🇮🇩 Indonesia |
More parks will be added in future updates.
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a Sumatran Frogmouth sighting in Kerinci Seblat National Park on a given day, based on 148 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 48th most-seen of the 203 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 50%, and over a week to about 80%, if each day is a fresh chance.
July, September and November
In those months about 30% of wildlife watchers report a Sumatran Frogmouth in Kerinci Seblat National Park on a given day, against about 10% in May, the lowest month. January has too few records to rate.
Between 2 and 5 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Sumatran Frogmouth sightings with a recorded time, and about 6 in 10 of them come between 6 pm and 6 am: it is most active around dawn and dusk.
Only Kerinci Seblat National Park, in our data
Kerinci Seblat National Park is the only park on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Sumatran Frogmouth sightings: about 20% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Sumatran Frogmouth is recorded against all the birds logged in Kerinci Seblat National Park (148 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
