Necklaced Barbet

The necklaced barbet is a small, stocky Asian barbet about 22.5 cm long, with a heavy dark bill, short neck and short tail. Its body is green, while the head carries a complex pattern of red on the forehead and nape, a golden crown and throat, black eye-stripe, white lower face and neck and blue behind the ear-coverts. Males and females look alike. Once treated as a subspecies of the golden-throated barbet, it is now recognised as a separate species (JICA biodiversity monitoring manual).

Restricted to southern Vietnam and neighbouring Laos, it inhabits evergreen forest, mixed broadleaf and pine woodland and coniferous forest from roughly 900 to 2,565 m, with records extending to 2,700 m. Fruit forms most of its diet, supplemented by flowers and insects including ants, cicadas, dragonflies, crickets, beetles, moths and mantids. Birds feed in the canopy and nest in tree holes; females lay two to four eggs (JICA biodiversity monitoring manual; Avibase species account).