page_title: Jungle myna
section_title: Behaviour and ecology
hierarchical_section_title: Jungle myna / Behaviour and ecology
caption_attribution_description: English: Jungle Myna Acridotheres fuscus in Kolkata, West Bengal, India.
context_page_description: The jungle myna is a myna, a member of the starling family. It is found patchily distributed across much of the mainland of the Indian Subcontinent but absent in the arid zones of India. It is easily recognized by the tuft of feathers on its forehead that form a frontal crest, a feature also found in the closely related Javan myna and the pale-bellied myna which were treated as a subspecies in the past. The eyes are pale, yellow or blue depending on the population and the base of the orange-yellow bill is dark. It has also been introduced either intentionally or accidentally into many other parts of the world including Fiji, Taiwan, the Andaman Islands, and parts of Japan. The species has also spread out on its own to some islands in the Pacific.
context_section_description: Jungle mynas are omnivorous feed mainly on insects, fruit and seeds, for which they forage mainly on the ground often in the company of other myna species. They also take berries from low bushes such as Lantana and take nectar from large flowers borne on trees such as Erythrina (which they may also pollinate with their tuft feathers acting as brushes) and water collected in the flowers of introduced trees such Spathodea campanulata. They also perch on large grazing mammals, picking ectoparasites off their bodies, and capturing insects that may be disturbed into flight from vegetation. Flocks may also follow farmers in fields that are being ploughed. They also forage on kitchen waste in urban areas. They may take larger prey including small mice to feed their young. In Fiji, they have been noticed anting using a millipede.
  The breeding season is in summer and before the rains, February to May in southern India and April to July in northern India. They are secondary cavity nesters, using both holes in trees and in man-made constructions such as walls, embankments, and in houses from 2 to 6 metres above the ground.  As secondary tree hole nesters, they compete with other hole-nesters. They have also been recorded using the axils of fronds of palm trees in Malaysia. They sometimes use sloughed snake skins to line the inside of the nest hole. In the Himalayan foothills, they use dry pine needles to line the nest. The usual clutch consists of 4 to 6 turquoise blue eggs. Both sexes take part in nest building, incubation and feeding the young.
  They roost communally along with other mynas, sometimes in sugarcane fields and reed beds.
  Species of Haemoproteus are known from the blood of mynas and they have also been found to host Plasmodium circumflexum when artificially infected in the lab. Other parasites that have been found in the jungle myna include Dorisa aethiopsaris in the intestine.
caption: Foraging while perched on a water buffalo along with a black drongo in West Bengal
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