[2] With new information from a recent mtDNA study, it appears that the Himalayan cuckoo is most closely related to Cuculus canorus, creating a sister-clade with the two other species: C.gularis and C.rochii.

[6] Adult male Himalayan cuckoos are dark ashy-grey above with a brown, almost black, tail that is whitely spotted and tipped.

[8][4] The Himalayan cuckoo can be found throughout northeast Pakistan, the northern Indian subcontinent to southern China in warm weather, spotted along Thailand, Taiwan, Nepal, Assam, Kashmir, and Burma.

In the winters, it ranges from southeast Asia to northern Australia, including Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and New Guinea in the months of October to May.

When it is breeding season, the cuckoo favors the Oriental Region and the Himalayas through southeast Asia to east China and Taiwan and is rarely found above 1000m.

The best breeding areas for C.saturatus in the summer is from late April to August in the Kashmir region and March through September surrounding Nepal.

For the colder seasons, it lives in primary and secondary tropical forests, savannas, gardens and teak on plantations, monsoon rainforests.

More occasionally over the more recent years, it is found in swamps, mangroves and plantations of Australia and general low elevation habitats of the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Borneo at 1200 to 2000m.

[4][7] The diet of a Himalayan cuckoo consists mainly of insects—especially caterpillars, both hairless and hairy alike across several families, such as Arctiidae, Lasiocampidae, Sphingidae, Saturnidae, and Noctuidae.

Outside of the insectivore diet, they have also been found to feed on certain fruits, pine shoots and needles, and occasionally, eggs that have been removed from other birds’ nests and the chicks within them, i.e. Asian Stubtail (Urosphena squameiceps) and the Grey-cheeked Fulvetta (Alcippe morrisonia).

An extreme case was found during an infestation of teak moths (Hyblaea puera) in New Guinea that caught the attention of at least 300 individuals.

When nestling, however, they will start off naked with either pale or dark skin, an orange or vermilion mouth and a yellow gape with four triangular black patches.

There is little other geographical data available since it is a rare visitor of Malaysia's lowlands in the winter and is suspected to be a passage migrant throughout Thailand, Indochina, the Philippines and Solomons.