The Vietnamese Cutia is a bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

 species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 in the family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 Timaliidae. It is found in Laos

Laos

Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...

 and Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

.

It was long considered a subspecies of the Himalayan Cutia

Himalayan Cutia

The Himalayan Cutia is a bird species in the family Timaliidae. Its scientific name ultimately means "the khutya from Nepal", as Cutia is derived from the Nepali name for these birds, and nipalensis is Latin for "from Nepal".This species inhabits the Himalayan region, from India to northern Thailand...

 (C. nipalensis), making the genus Cutia

Cutia

The cutias are the bird genus Cutia in the family Timaliidae. These birds are found in montane forests of continental South and Southeast Asia. The name is derived from the Nepali name khatya or khutya for the type species, the Himalayan Cutia...

monotypic

Monotypic

In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group with only one biological type. The term's usage differs slightly between botany and zoology. The term monotypic has a separate use in conservation biology, monotypic habitat, regarding species habitat conversion eliminating biodiversity and...

. In recent times, it is more often elevated to full species status.

Its natural habitat

Habitat

* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...

 is tropical moist montane forests. The Vietnamese Cutia is not considered threatened by the IUCN, but as its range is far more restricted than of its western relative, it is classified as a Near Threatened

Near Threatened

Near Threatened is a conservation status assigned to species or lower taxa that may be considered threatened with extinction in the near future, although it does not currently qualify for the threatened status...

species after the split.