Black-backed Butcherbird (Cracticus mentalis)
About the Black-backed Butcherbird
The black-backed butcherbird (Cracticus mentalis) is a species of bird in the family Artamidae. It is found in southern New Guinea and Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, Australia. The black-backed butcherbird was first described by Italian explorers and naturalists Tommaso Salvadori and Luigi D'Albertis in 1876. Although its scientific name translates as "mental noisy bird", the species epithet mentalis refers to its chin not its mind. It is one of six (or seven) members of the genus Cracticus known as butcherbirds. Within the genus, it is most closely related to the grey and silver-backed butcherbirds. The three form a monophyletic group—the subgenus Bulestes—within the genus, having diverged from ancestors of the pied butcherbird around five million years ago.
No audio on this page yet
We only publish recordings we may use commercially, because this site is supported by ads. xeno-canto lists 9 recordings for this species: 4 CC BY-NC-ND · 1 CC BY-NC-SA. None of them permits commercial use, so there is no player here — the page is kept as a profile so the bird is not missing from the guide.
As soon as someone uploads a freely licensed recording, we mirror it and the player appears here.
Listed as recorded in Australia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea in the xeno-canto catalogue.
Related species you can hear
- Grey ButcherbirdCracticus torquatusrecording
- Pied ButcherbirdCracticus nigrogularisrecording
This species has no recording here yet — these relatives do, so you can hear what the family sounds like.