Vanga curvirostris
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~20% in a week ~50%
The hook-billed vanga (Vanga curvirostris) is a species of bird in the family Vangidae. It is endemic to Madagascar. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forest, subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest, and subtropical or tropical moist montane forest.
In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the hook-billed vanga in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected on the island of Madagascar. He used the French name L'écorcheur de Madagascar and the Latin Collurio Madagascariensis. 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 hook-billed vanga. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Lanius curvirostris and cited Brisson's work. It is now the only species placed in the genus Vanga that was introduced by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1816.
The genus name Vanga is the Malagasy name for the species. The specific epithet curvirostris is from Latin curvus "curved" and -rostrum "billed". Two subspecies are recognised: A 2018 study on avian skull evolution has concluded that the ancestral neornithe had a beak most similar to this species. This suggests a similar ancestral ecological niche for modern birds. Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Berenty Reserve | 🇲🇬 Madagascar | |
| 2 | Ankarafantsika National Park | 🇲🇬 Madagascar | |
| 3 | Ranomafana National Park | 🇲🇬 Madagascar | |
| 4 | Mantadia National Park | 🇲🇬 Madagascar |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Hook-billed Vanga sighting in Mantadia National Park on a given day, based on 41 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 68th most-seen of the 98 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 20%, and over a week to about 50%, if each day is a fresh chance.
July to November
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Hook-billed Vanga in Mantadia National Park on a given day, against under 5% in May–June and December, the lowest months. Those are among Mantadia National Park's driest months, with about 80 mm of rain a month against 340 mm in January. January to April have too few records to rate.
Between 5 and 8 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Hook-billed Vanga sightings with a recorded time, and about 7 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is most active around dawn and dusk.
4th of 4
Of the 4 parks where we can rate Hook-billed Vanga sightings, Mantadia National Park ranks 4th at about 10%. The best odds are in Berenty Reserve (Madagascar, about 50%), Ankarafantsika National Park (Madagascar, about 30%) and Ranomafana National Park (Madagascar, about 20%).
Same family: Vangidae
The closest relatives of the Hook-billed Vanga 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 Hook-billed Vanga is recorded against all the birds logged in Mantadia National Park (41 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.
