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Top 10 Smartest Talking Birds In The World

7. Hill Myna

Hill mynas are one the best talking birds found across Southeast Asia. They are better known for their ability to mimic human voice in exact tone. Hill mynas also produce wide ranges of whistles, wails and screeches.

The great Indian hill and common hill myna are the two main species of hill mynas. These two species have more talking power than other mynas. They can mimic human speech in nearly same tone and quality. Some other species of hill myna like Southern hill mynas also have talking ability. But, they never become so clear like great Indian hill or common hill myna.


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The common hill myna, sometimes spelled «mynah» and formerly simply known as hill myna, is the myna most commonly seen in aviculture, where it is often simply referred to by the latter two names. It is a member of the starling family, resident in hill regions of South Asia and Southeast Asia. The Sri Lanka hill myna, a former subspecies of G. religiosa, is now generally accepted as a separate species G. ptilogenys. The Enggano hill myna and Nias hill myna are also widely accepted as specifically distinct, and many authors favor treating the Southern hill myna from the Nilgiris and elsewhere in the Western Ghats of India as a separate species.

This is a stocky jet-black myna, with bright orange-yellow patches of naked skin and fleshy wattles on the side of its head and nape. At about 29 cm length, it is somewhat larger than the common myna.

It is overall green-glossed black plumage, purple-tinged on the head and neck. Its large, white wing patches are obvious in flight, but mostly covered when the bird is sitting. The bill and strong legs are bright yellow, and there are yellow wattles on the nape and under the eye. These differ conspicuously in shape from the naked eye-patch of the common myna and bank myna, and more subtly vary between the different hill mynas from South Asia: in the common hill myna, they extend from the eye to the nape, where they join, while the Sri Lanka hill myna has a single wattle across the nape and extending a bit towards the eyes. In the Southern hill myna, the wattles are separate and curve towards the top of the head. The Nias and Enggano hill mynas differ in details of the facial wattles, and size, particularly that of the bill.

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