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Javan blue-banded kingfisher

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Through Species, Endemism and Java

It is a small, rather dark kingfisher. The male is highly distinctive, with a broad blue-green band across a white chest. The female is very different, with an all-orange belly; distinguished from the common kingfisher (A. atthis) by an overall duller, darker coloration and the lack of a bright white-and-orange patch behind the eye, its call is piercing similar to the common kingfisher.

Taxonomy

The first formal description of the Javan blue-banded kingfisher was by the Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck in 1830. In his initial publication the binomial name was incorrectly printed as Alcedo cryzona but this was later corrected to Alcedo euryzona. The specific epithet euryzona is from the classical Greek eurus meaning "broad" and zōnē meaning "band" or "belt".

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