Mystacornis crossleyi
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~70% in a week ~90%
Crossley's vanga (Mystacornis crossleyi), also known as Crossley's babbler-vanga, Crossley's babbler, Madagascar groundhunter, or Madagascar groundjumper, is a bird species in the family Vangidae. It is named after the specimen collector Alfred Crossley.
The bird is in the monotypic genus Mystacornis. The species is an example of convergent evolution: its bill and body shape adapted to its habit of looking for insect prey in the leaf litter, eventually becoming so similar to that of ground-babblers that early naturalists initially classified the Crossley's vanga into what was then known as the babbler family, Timaliidae.
Crossley's vanga is a small babbler-like bird, 15 cm long and weighing around 25 g. Its most distinctive feature is the olive-grey bill, which is disproportionately long and slightly hooked at the end. The plumage of the male is olive green on the crown, back, wings, tail and flanks, a grey belly, black throat and face, with a white submoustachial stripe and grey stripe above the eye. The legs are grey and the iris black. The female is similar but with a white throat and belly.
The breeding season for... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mantadia National Park | 🇲🇬 Madagascar | |
| 2 | Ranomafana National Park | 🇲🇬 Madagascar |
Possible
About 30% of wildlife watchers report a Crossley's Babbler sighting in Mantadia National Park on a given day, based on 147 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 44th most-seen of the 98 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 70%, and over a week to about 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
May
In that month about 50% of wildlife watchers report a Crossley's Babbler in Mantadia National Park on a given day, against about 10% in June and September, the lowest months. That is one of Mantadia National Park's driest months, with about 80 mm of rain against 340 mm in January. January to April have too few records to rate.
Between 6 and 9 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Crossley's Babbler sightings with a recorded time, and about 7 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Yes
Of the 2 parks where we can rate Crossley's Babbler sightings, Mantadia National Park has the highest daily chance: about 30%. Next come Ranomafana National Park (Madagascar, about 30%).
Same family: Vangidae
The closest relatives of the Crossley's Babbler that you can see in Mantadia National Park (family Vangidae, Vangas, Helmetshrikes, and Allies) are Red-tailed Vanga (about 50%), Common Newtonia (about 50%) and Nuthatch-Vanga (about 40%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Crossley's Babbler is recorded against all the birds logged in Mantadia National Park (147 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.
