The Sultan Tit, Melanochlora sultanea is a large, up to 20.5cm long, songbird with a yellow crest, dark bill, black upperparts plumage and yellow below. Both sexes are similar. The female has greenish black upperparts and yellowish throat. Young bird is duller than adult and has shorter crest.

It is the only member of monotypic genus Melanochlora, which is fairly distinct from the remaining titmice and only closer to the equally monotypic Sylviparus (Gill et al., 2005). Indeed, these two birds are so distinct judging from mtDNA cytochrome b sequences that they might not properly belong to the Paridae if the penduline tits are not placed therein too (Jønsson & Fjeldsa 2006).

The Sultan Tit is distributed in rainforests of Southeast Asia, from Bangladesh, India, China, Nepal, Indochina to Sumatra, Indonesia. One subspecies of Sultan Tit, Melanochlora sultanea gayeti of Laos and Vietnam is distinguish for having a black crest on both male and female.

Widespread throughout its large range, the Sultan Tit is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

References

• BirdLife International (2004). Melanochlora sultanea. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 1 November 2006. Database entry includes justification for why this species is of least concern
• Gill, Frank B.; Slikas, Beth & Sheldon, Frederick H. (2005): Phylogeny of titmice (Paridae): II. Species relationships based on sequences of the mitochondrial cytochrome-b gene. Auk 122: 121-143. DOI: 10.1642/0004-8038(2005)122[0121:POTPIS]2.0.CO;2 HTML abstract
• Jønsson, Knud A. & Fjeldså, Jon (2006): Determining biogeographical patterns of dispersal and diversification in oscine passerine birds in Australia, Southeast Asia and Africa. J. Biogeogr. 33(7): 1155–1165. DOI:10.1111/j.1365-2699.2006.01507.x (HTML abstract)