Ivory-backed Woodswallow

The ivory-backed woodswallow is an endemic Wallacean member of Artamidae. It is recognised as Artamus monachus, with the pale back implied by its English name contrasting against darker plumage. Museum collections include named nominate specimens, and current world lists retain the species separately from the widespread white-breasted woodswallow and the white-backed woodswallow of the Bismarck Archipelago (Naturalis Biodiversity Center; IOC World Bird List).

Its documented range includes Sulawesi, Lembeh, the Togian and Banggai groups, Buton and the Sula Islands. General species accounts place it in moist lowland and montane forest. Reliable open sources provided little species-specific information on aerial feeding, social behaviour or nesting, so those features are not borrowed from other Artamus. The broad set of satellite-island records is more informative than treating it simply as a mainland Sulawesi bird (IOC World Bird List).