Godavari racing bird

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Godavari racebird
JC PJ.jpg

Godavari racing bird ( Rhinoptilus bitorquatus )

Systematics
Class : Birds (aves)
Subclass : New-jawed birds (Neognathae)
Order : Plover-like (Charadriiformes)
Family : Curlews (Glareolidae)
Genre : Rhinoptilus
Type : Godavari racebird
Scientific name
Rhinoptilus bitorquatus
( Blyth , 1848)

The Godavarirennvogel ( Rhinoptilus bitorquatus ) is an extremely rare, poorly understood species from the family of Brachschwalbe-like (Glareolidae). He is in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh is endemic .

features

Illustration by John Gerrard Keulemans

The godavari racer reaches a body length of 27 cm. The crown and the back of the neck are dark brown. The median on the top of the head is whitish. The wide, white stripes over the eyes sometimes form a V on the back of the buttocks. The reins and the area under the eyes are tinted cream. The rest of the top and a broad chest band are pink-sand-brown. The chin and throat are white with a broad orange-reddish spot on the front neck. The brown chest is lined with a narrow, dark band above and below. A white band runs over the underbust, which is lined below by a narrow, dark band. The rest of the underside is predominantly white. The upper wing ceilings are lined with white. The wing feathers have black and white spots on the wing tips of the outermost third and fourth hand wings. The under wing-coverts are mainly cream-white with black and red-brown spots on the wing crease. The tail is black with a white base, the beak is black with a yellow base, the legs are yellowish white. The godavari racing bird is the only racing bird species with white wing tips. The head and neck pattern is pronounced. The youth dress is blank, but speculations are that the top is lightly hemmed and that the head and chest markings are indistinct, like those of the Afrotropic relatives.

distribution

Distribution area of ​​the Godavari bird
_ Locations of the specimen copies
_ Current distribution

The range of the Godavari bird is now limited to the area on the Pennar River in the south of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Older records are known from the Godavari Valley in the south of Andhra Pradesh, from the southeast of Maharashtra and the northeast of Andhra Pradesh. The godavari racer was considered to be extinct in the Lankamalai area until its rediscovery in 1986 and has since been found in a few other places in the Lankamalai, Velikonda and Palakonda ranges. In 2009 there was a confirmed sighting in the Kadapa district .

habitat

The godavari racer inhabits dry, rocky, hilly ground with a thin forest or scrub cover. Although he was viewed by Thomas Caverhill Jerdon as a mountain form of the racing bird , he could never be seen on hills during an expedition by William Thomas Blanford (1895–1898) , a fact that can be explained by moderate seasonal migrations to higher altitudes. The birds used to be found on bare, grassless areas between bushes in the thicket at the foot of the mountains, where the vegetation consisted of both thorny (mainly dominated by the genera Acacia , Ziziphus and Carissa ) and non-thorny thicket (mainly dominated by Cassia , Hardwickia , Dalbergia , Butea and Anogeissus ). These bushes were generally 2 to 4 m high, with Hardwickia reaching heights of over 5 m. The preferred habitat was evidently a thin scrub forest strip between denser forests and grazed or cultivated areas. During the day the birds hide between the thorn bush forests dominated by wax trees. In 1994/1995 there were sightings in the Sri Lankamaleshwara Wildlife Sanctuary near small bodies of water in the flooded grasslands.

hikes

The more rounded wings suggest that the species is localized. According to information from local bird trappers, mainly flocks of 7 to 8 birds were seen during the monsoon season, migrating to the hills and the rest of the year to the foothills.

Eating behavior

Practically nothing is known about its feeding behavior. It is nocturnal and believed to feed primarily on insects, including termites.

Vocalizations

JerdonsCourserCall.jpg
Record of the Godavari race bird call

Earlier descriptions of utterances ascribed to this species are now considered to be the result of confusion with the Indian triel ( Burhinus indicus ). The male evidently sings for a few minutes at dawn and dusk outside of the breeding season, this chant consisting of plaintive tones. The first note of each tone pair is staccato-like and strongly directed upwards, the second downwards and less abruptly. His calls sound like Twick-to ... Twick-to ... Twick-too or Yak-wak ... Yak-wak.

Reproductive behavior

Egg of the godavari racer in the collection of the Zoology Museum, University of Aberdeen.

No authentic information is available about reproductive behavior. Males collected in June had enlarged gonads. A suspected clutch of two yellow eggs laid on the ground is believed to have been harvested in 1895, while local residents made similar claims.

status

Memorial stone for the godavari racer at the Bronx Zoo , which was erected before it was rediscovered.

The godavari racer was already rare and difficult to find in the 19th century, with sightings in 1848 and 1871. It was considered extinct since June 1900, before being rediscovered in January 1986 after a year-long research by the Bombay Natural History Society . Two previous searches in the Eastern Ghats in the 1930s and 1970s have failed. The godavari racebird is considered one of the rarest birds in the world and is critically endangered. In January 1986, three live birds were spotted in Reddipalli near Kadapa in the bush forests below the Lankamalai Hills in the Sagileru River Valley and the Pennar River Valley, south of Andhra Pradesh. The records gathered since 1986 currently include six sites near the Lankamalai Mountains. Two birds observed in 2009 in the Cuddapah district of Andhra Pradesh state were the first confirmed sightings since 2004. At least eight individuals were sighted at the known sites. The IUCN estimates the population at 50 to 249 sexually mature individuals. The total area of ​​the suitable habitat within the known distribution area is only 2000 km². The main threat is habitat loss from firewood gathering, cattle grazing, quarries, and clearing for agriculture and plantations. The habitat is under pressure from grazing and is becoming increasingly scarce and fragmented. The analysis of satellite images showed that 11 to 15% of the bush habitat was lost in less than a decade, between 1991 and 2000. The species was rediscovered just in time when the Telugu Ganga irrigation system was diverted under pressure from conservationists. Significant progress has been made in protecting the habitat: a forest near Kadapa, where the species had been rediscovered, was designated a Sri Lankamalleswara Wildlife Sanctuary, and local bird trappers were used as guardians of the reserve; a further reserve of 500 km² has been designated as another protected area, and another of 1,300 km² is also planned. Some pasture or other habitat management may be necessary to preserve the scrubland.

literature

  • James Cowan Greenway (1967): Extinct and Vanishing Birds of the World . Dover Publications Inc., New York, ISBN 0-486-21869-4
  • David Day : The Doomsday Book of Animals. Ebury Press, London 1981, ISBN 0670279870
  • Dieter Luther: The extinct birds of the world. Westarp Sciences, 1995, ISBN 3-89432-213-6
  • B. Anand Mohan, Bharat B. Lakshmi: Rediscription and review on the ecology of rare and endangered bird Jerdon's or Double-Banded Courser, Cursorius bitorquatus (Blyth) from Sri Lankamalleswara Wildlife Sanctuary, Andhra Pradesh. Indian Forester. 125: (10), 1999, pp. 986-994.
  • Maharashtra Raju Kasambe, Anil Pimplapure and Gopal Thosar: In search of Jerdon's Courser Rhinoptilus bitorquatus in Vidarbha , Newsletter for Birdwatchers 48 (6), 2008
  • P. Jeganathan: Call of the Jerdon's Courser In: Hornbill, January – March 2005, Bombay Natural History Society
  • Mohammed Ghouse S, Meer Althaf Ahmedand Shaik Abdul Muneer: Dwindling status of rarest bird Jerdon's courser (Rhinoptilus bitorquatus) of Andhra Pradesh and its conservation. In: New Horizons in Biotechnology. (Viswanath B. and Indravathi G., eds.) Paramount Publishing House, India, 2015, pp. 308-311.
  • Anonymous: A Species Recovery Plan for Jerdon's Courser Rhinoptilus bitorquatus , Andhra Pradesh Forest Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad, 2010, pp. 1-30
  • SD Ripley , B. Beehler : Systematics, Biogeography, and Conservation of Jerdon's Courser Rhinoptilus bitorquatus Journal of The Yamashina Institute for Ornithology, 1989
  • Jeganathan, P .; Green, RE; Bowden, CGR; Norris, K .; Pain, D .; Rahmani, A: Use of tracking strips and automatic cameras for detecting critically endangered Jerdon's coursers Rhinoptilus bitorquatus in scrub jungle in Andhra Pradesh , India. Oryx 36, 2002, pp. 182-188.
  • Jeganathan, P .; Rahmani, AR; Green, RE; Norris, K .; Vogiatzakis, IN; Bowden, C .; Pain, D: Quantification of threats and suggested ameliorative measures for the conservation of the critically endangered Jerdon's Courser Rhinoptilus bitorquatus and its habitat. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 105 (1), 2008, pp. 73-83.
  • Deepa Senapathi, Ioannis N. Vogiatzakis, Pancha Pakesan Jeganathan, Jennifer A. Gill , Rhys E. Green, Christopher GR Bowden, Asad R. Rahmani, Debbie Pain & Ken Norris: Use of remote sensing to measure change in the extent of habitat for the critically endangered Jerdon's Courser Rhinoptilus bitorquatus in India Ibis 149, 2007, pp. 328-337
  • Knox, Alan G. and Piertney, Stuart B .: The discovery of the egg of Jerdon's courser Rhinoptilus bitorquatus (Blyth 1848). Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 109 (3), 2012, pp. 149-152.
  • Alan G. Knox : The first egg of Jerdon's courser Rhinoptilus bitorquatus and a review of the early records of this species. Archives of Natural History 41, 2014, pp. 75-93
  • Maclean, GL, CJ Sharpe, and GM Kirwan (2020). Jerdon's Courser (Rhinoptilus bitorquatus) , version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, DA Christie, and E. de Juana, eds.). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. (Subscription required)

Web links

Commons : Godavarian Rennvogel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files