A bird with an upright white crest that hops through the trees.
It has a white crest, a black face and red skin around the eyes. The bill is yellow, and the flight feathers include red.
At Ngel Nyaki Forest Reserve in Nigeria, researchers placed ten plots in each of three settings—forest fragments, the main forest and its boundary—for 30 plots in total. They recorded 22–25 fruiting tree species at each setting, of which six to eight were preferred by turacos.
The paper also described the White-crested Turaco as the only common large-gaped frugivore remaining in the fragments and noted the birds’ role in dispersing seeds through the forest. Plant-preference figures were pooled across turacos and are not a species-specific diet estimate. This local study shows how small forest patches can still connect fruit-eating birds with the trees whose seeds they spread.
IUCN Red List · Least Concern (LC) · Global
The White-crested Turaco is listed as Least Concern globally by the IUCN Red List, with the category confirmed in the 2024 update. A global assessment across a broad range does not describe the condition of small forest fragments at Ngel Nyaki. The local study recorded White-crested Turacos in fragments and at the forest edge and discussed their seed-dispersal role. Global status and local forest condition need to be considered separately.