The greater racket-tailed drongo (Dicrurus paradiseus) is a medium-sized Asian bird which is distinctive in having elongated outer tail feathers with webbing restricted to the tips.

They are conspicuous in the forest habitats often perching in the open and by attracting attention with a wide range of loud calls that include perfect imitations of many other birds.

These drongos will sometimes steal insect prey caught or disturbed by other foragers in the flock and another idea is that vocal mimicry helps them in diverting the attention of smaller birds to aid their piracy.

[2] In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the greater racket-tailed drongo in his Ornithologie based on a specimen that had been collected in Thailand (Siam).

He used the French name Le Coucou Verd Hupé de Siam and the Latin Cuculus Siamensis Cristatus Viridis.

[4] When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson.

[8] The Sri Lanka drongo (D. lophorinus) used to be treated as a subspecies as it was believed to form hybrids with ceylonicus but is now considered a separate species on the basis of their overlapping ranges.

[10] Considerable variation in shape of the bill, extent of the crest, hackles and tail rackets exists in the island populations of Southeast Asia.

[14] Their calls are extremely varied and include monotonously repeated whistles, metallic and nasal sounds as well as more complex notes and imitations of other birds.

[17] This drongo's context-sensitive use of other species' alarm calls is thus analogous to a human learning useful short phrases and exclamations in a number of foreign languages.

[32][33] Edward H. Schafer considered the greater racket-tailed drongo as the basis for the divine kalaviṅka birds mentioned in Chinese and Japanese Buddhist texts.