A barbet that lives in Singapore’s parks and residential areas. Adults are mostly green with red and yellow markings, and feed largely on figs and other fruit.
Adults have a green body, red forehead and breast, and a yellow throat. Juveniles are duller and lack the red patches.
Researchers compared two mitochondrial regions and one nuclear gene from Coppersmith Barbets sampled across southern Asia and nearby islands. Samples from India and Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and tropical East Asia with Sundaland formed distinct geographic groups. Philippine samples held greater genetic diversity despite their smaller sampled range.
Genetic comparisons placed red-faced birds in two separate branches within the wider diversity of yellow-faced birds. Ancestral-state reconstruction supported at least two independent changes from yellow to red during the Pleistocene, one in the Philippines and one in Sundaland, including Java and Bali.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
The genetic comparisons suggested that Coppersmith Barbets diversified first in tropical East Asia and Sundaland, then spread to the Philippines and later to India and Sri Lanka. Their regional lineages and colour forms record different stages in the species’ geographic history.