# Chestnut Munia

*Lonchura atricapilla*

They are highly social and often form massive flocks, sometimes numbering in the thousands during the rice harvest season.

- **Taxonomy:** Animalia › Chordata › Aves › Passeriformes › Estrildidae › Lonchura
- **IUCN Red List status:** Least Concern
- **Population trend:** stable
- **Biome:** wetland
- **Habitat:** Marshes, reedbeds, rice paddies, and tall grasslands.
- **Diet:** Primarily seeds, especially rice and various wild grasses.
- **Range:** India, Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam
- **Size:** 11-12 cm in length; weight 10-14g
- **Lifespan:** 5-8 years
- **Active:** diurnal
- **Threats:** Habitat loss due to drainage of wetlands, capture for the pet trade, and agricultural pesticide use.
- **Safe to approach?:** Harmless. These social birds are easily spooked; maintain a distance of 5-10 meters to observe flocking behavior. No risk of injury or irritation to humans.

## About

The chestnut munia ( Lonchura atricapilla ), formerly considered as a subspecies of the tricoloured munia, is also known as black-headed munia .It is a small passerine bird. This estrildid finch is a resident breeding bird in Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Burma, Nepal, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam and Hawaii.

## Sources

- Plate: https://gaia-dex.com/species/990683d6-bf2c-4b2b-9d92-6eb3e387e8cd
- iNaturalist: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/72989
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonchura atricapilla
- Conservation status: IUCN Red List category, as recorded by Gaia-Dex
- Photo: https://inaturalist-open-data.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/313615542/medium.jpg (Tareq's Photography, CC-BY-SA, via iNaturalist)

Habitat, diet, size and similar notes are AI-written summaries; check them against the linked sources before relying on them.