Azure-crested flycatcher

The azure-crested flycatcher was first described in 1875 by ornithologist Edgar Leopold Layard, Administrator of the Government of the Colony of Fiji at the time.[2] Its specific epithet is derived from the Latin azureus 'blue', and capillus 'of the head'.[3] It is also commonly known as the blue-crested broadbill,[4] or the azure-crested flycatcher.

It is a member of a group of birds termed monarch flycatchers. This group is considered either as a subfamily Monarchinae, together with the fantails as part of the drongo family Dicruridae,[5] or as a family Monarchidae in its own right.[6] They are not closely related to their namesakes either, the Old World flycatchers of the family Muscicapidae; early molecular research in the late 1980s and early 1990s revealed the monarchs belong to a large group of mainly Australasian birds known as the Corvida parvorder comprising many tropical and Australian passerines.[7] More recently, the grouping has been refined somewhat as the monarchs have been classified in a 'Core corvine' group with the crows and ravens, shrikes, birds of paradise, fantails, drongos and mudnest builders.[8]

In 2016, two former subspecies of the azure-crested flycatcher were reclassified as a separate species, the chestnut-throated flycatcher.[9]

Measuring 14 cm (5.5 in) in length, the azure-crested Flycatcher is sexually dimorphic. The male has light blue crown with slate-blue upperparts, and white underparts. The female in brown above with greyish tinged cheeks and bluish tinged crown.[4] Unusually for the genus Myiagra the bill is bright orange instead of black.

• 
  Male in threat-posture, Vidawa, Taveuni, Fiji Isles