Bird [2]: Tulo Ek Asee

Scientific classification

Kingdom	Animalia
Phylum	Chordata
Class	Aves
Order	Passeriformes
Family	Estrildidae
Genus	Lonchura
Species	L. punctulata

Binomial name

Lonchura punctulata

(Linnaeus, 1758)
credit

Lonchura Punctulata is the scientific name for scaly-breasted munia or spice finch, in Aceh called "tulo ek asee" that's a strange naming its meaning is birds of dog dung. Other common names: Nutmeg Finch, Nutmeg Mannikin, Nutmeg Munia, Ricebird, Scaly-breasted Mannikin, Scaly-breasted Munia, Spice Finch, Spice Munia, Spice Bird, Spotted Mannikin, Spotted Munia, Barred Munia, Mascot Finch. ¹

This munia eats mainly grass seeds apart from berries and small insects, communicate with soft calls and whistles, can be found in tropical plains and grasslands.² I shot photos for Munia in a pine forest and a meadow with bushes near Ulee Lheue beach, Banda Aceh City.

Species originating from tropical Asia, dispersal areas can be seen on the map below.

^{Click on the image, takes you to the source}

This species has a widespread natural range across South and South-East Asia, as well as in Indonesia and the Philippines, while in our region it is now reasonably widespread through the Greater Antilles, having been introduced to Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico, as well as on Guadeloupe and Dominica, in the Lesser Antilles, where it arrived in the mid 1980s. The initial introductions came on Puerto Rico in the 1960s, and the species thereafter appeared to spread naturally, having also reached St. Croix, in the Virgin Islands, in the 1980s. ³

Footnotes
^{1. http://www.finchinfo.com/birds/finches/species/spice_finch.php}
^{2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaly-breasted_munia}
^{3. https://neotropical.birds.cornell.edu/Species-Account/nb/species/nutman/overview}