Giant Laughingthrush Ianthocincla maxima Scientific name definitions

30·5–35·5 cm; 105–136 g. Very large dark-capped, chestnut-faced laughingthrush with white spotting above, buffy tan below. Crown and nape are blackish-brown, sharply changing to pale greyish buffy-brown on mantle and neck side, feathers with broad blackish subterminal bars and dot-like buffish-white tips, shading to rich dark chestnut on back, scapulars, rump and upper­tail-coverts, these patterned as mantle but with terminal dots mostly white; blackish upper­wing-coverts tipped white, narrow grey wingpanel; tail blackish-chestnut with black subterminal bar and white tips; lores dirty whitish to greyish, shading to rufous-buff supercilium, narrow postocular eyestripe blackish, ear-coverts to chin and throat chestnut-rufous, greyer and mottled around gape, upper breast chestnut-rufous with narrow buff and black scaling, becoming buff on mid-breast and shading to buffy tan on remaining underparts; iris pale grey to yellowish; bill horn-brown, lower mandible paler; legs brownish-flesh to yellowish-grey. Sexes similar in plumage, female slightly smaller than male. Juvenile has fewer, more triangular spots on back, unspotted rump and uppertail-coverts, unbarred duller rufous on throat and breast, shorter tail.

Has been treated as conspecific with G. ocellatus, and the two appear to intergrade between upper R Subansiri (India) and Tsangpo Valley, in SE Tibet. Monotypic.

SW Gansu and SE Qinghai S to SE & E Tibet and N Yunnan, in SC China.

No information on diet; presumably invertebrates and some vegetable matter. Secretive. Often associates with other laughingthrushes. Forages mostly on ground, occasionally ascending trees to 5 m.

Song a repetition (with slight variations) of a loud, clear, sweet, quite rich and melodious, almost Turdus-like phrase, “chwi-chui-chwee-chwi”, with very short pauses , e.g. “chwi-chwi-chwi-chwi-wuu, wi-wiu-wi-wu”, “wiu-wuu, wiu-wuu…wi-wiu-wi-wiu-wi-wiu” or “wi-wiu-wi-wi, chu-chui-chu-chui-chu-chui”; described also as loud rambling “tuwheet, tuwheet, fuuo, fweeo-fwee-fweeofwee-fweeo”, a brief “fúwít, fúwít, fuwééó”, and rhythmically repeated “fuwit-fwít-fwéét-fwéét-fuwit-fwít-fwéét-fwéét…” and so on. Very like that of G. ocellatus, but notes shorter, more modulated, and tempo faster.

May–Aug. A nest in SE Tibet was a shallow cup of small twigs, lined with dry grass and placed 1·2 m above ground in bamboo clump (1 Ludlow, F. and Kinnear, N.-B. (1944). The birds of southeastern Tibet. Ibis. 86: 43–86, 176–208, 348–389. Close ); seven nests in S Gansu were placed in conifers (Picea asperata, Abies fargesii) at 2·4–7·0 m above the ground (2 Wang, J., Jia, C.-X., Tang, S.-H., Fang, Y. and Sun, Y.-H. (2010). Breeding of the Giant Laughingthrush (Ianthocincla maxima) at Lianhuashan, Southern Gansu, China Wilson Journal of Ornithology. 122(2): 388–391. Close ). Clutch 2–3 eggs, blue, unspotted. In S Gansu, clutch 2·2 eggs in average (n = 6), of which 1·4 nestlings hatched and 1·0 young fledged (n = 7); three nests failed, possibly due to predation or abandonment during prolonged rainfall; nestling period probably 17–18 days; both parents incubated eggs, and brooded and provisioned nestlings (2 Wang, J., Jia, C.-X., Tang, S.-H., Fang, Y. and Sun, Y.-H. (2010). Breeding of the Giant Laughingthrush (Ianthocincla maxima) at Lianhuashan, Southern Gansu, China Wilson Journal of Ornithology. 122(2): 388–391. Close ). No other information.

Not globally threatened (Least Concern). Locally common.