Pale-blue Monarch
Encyclopedia
The Pale-blue Monarch, Hypothymis puella, is a small passerine
Passerine
A passerine is a bird of the order Passeriformes, which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds or, less accurately, as songbirds, the passerines form one of the most diverse terrestrial vertebrate orders: with over 5,000 identified species, it has roughly...

 bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

.

The Pale-blue Monarch is endemic to eastern Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

. It has two subspecies. The nominate race, H. p. puella, is found on Sulawesi
Sulawesi
Sulawesi is one of the four larger Sunda Islands of Indonesia and is situated between Borneo and the Maluku Islands. In Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo, and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger Indonesian populations.- Etymology :The Portuguese were the first to...

 and adjacent islands, and H. p. blasii is found in the Banggai
Banggai
Banggai Archipelago is a group of islands, which is located at the far eastern end of Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. It makes up a newly established regency after splitting out of Luwuk. It is surrounded by the Banda Sea's Gulf of Tolo , and the Molucca Sea...

 archipelago
Archipelago
An archipelago , sometimes called an island group, is a chain or cluster of islands. The word archipelago is derived from the Greek ἄρχι- – arkhi- and πέλαγος – pélagos through the Italian arcipelago...

. Both forms are often considered to be subspecies of the widespread Black-naped Monarch
Black-naped Monarch
The Black-naped Monarch or Black-naped Blue Flycatcher is a slim and agile passerine bird belonging to the family of monarch flycatchers. They are sexually dimorphic with males having a distinctive black patch on the back of the head and a narrow black half collar while the female is duller and...

, Hypothymis azurea.

The Pale-blue Monarch is a forest species which builds a small cup nest. It has short legs and sits very upright whilst perched prominently, like a shrike
Shrike
Shrikes are passerine birds of the family Laniidae. The family is composed of thirty-one species in three genera. The family name, and that of the largest genus, Lanius, is derived from the Latin word for "butcher", and some shrikes were also known as "butcher birds" because of their feeding habits...

. It is insectivorous, often hunting by flycatching.
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