Malabar barbet of alates), ants and small caterpillars. In Kerala, the fruiting trees were limited mainly to "Ficus" species, especially "Ficus retusa", "Ficus gibbosa" and "Ficus tsiela". When feeding on small fruits, they tend to perch and peck rather than to swallow the fruit whole. In the non-breeding season, they join mixed-species foraging flocks. Malabar barbet The Malabar barbet ("Psilopogon malabaricus") is a small barbet found in the Western Ghats of India. It was formerly treated as a race of the crimson-fronted barbet ("Psilopogon rubricapillus"). It overlaps in some places with the range of the coppersmith barbet ("Psilopogon haemacephala") and has a
Malabar region moisture-laden Southwest monsoon rains. The Malabar Coast featured (and in some instances still does) a number of historic port cities. Notable among these were/are Naura, Vizhinjam, Muziris, Nelcynda, Beypore and Thundi (near Kadalundi) during ancient times, and Kozhikode (Calicut), Cochin in the medieval period, and have served as centers of the Indian Ocean trade for millennia. Because of their orientation to the sea and to maritime commerce, the coastal cities of Malabar are very cosmopolitan and have hosted some of the first groups of Christians (now known as Saint Thomas Christians), Jews (today called as Cochin Jews), and Muslims (at