Ribbon bird of paradise
| Ribbon bird of paradise | ||||||||||||
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Ribbon bird of paradise |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Semioptera | ||||||||||||
| GR Gray , 1859 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||||
| Semioptera wallacii | ||||||||||||
| GR Gray, 1859 |
The ribbon bird of paradise ( Semioptera wallacii ) is a species from the family of birds of paradise (Paradisaeidae). It is the only representative of the genus Semioptera and, unlike most species of birds of paradise, does not occur in New Guinea, but on an island in the Moluccas . It belongs to the subfamily of the actual birds of paradise . Compared to other males of this subfamily, the adult male plumage is comparatively less colorful, but the sexual dimorphism in this species is very pronounced. Females are on average 10 percent smaller than males.
Like several other island endings among the birds of paradise, the species is classified as near threatened by the IUCN . There are two subspecies.
features
Body type and measurements
The banded bird of paradise is one of the smaller birds of paradise with a body length of up to 26 centimeters. The tail plumage measures between 7.1 and 9 centimeters in the male. In contrast to most birds of paradise, the middle pair of control feathers is not elongated, but at 6 to 8.1 centimeters, it is even slightly shorter than the rest of the tail plumage. The banded bird of paradise shares this characteristic with the Ptiloris species within the subfamily of the actual birds of paradise.
The female, which is shorter than the male with an average body length of 23 centimeters, has tail plumage between 7.8 and 9.4 centimeters in length. The middle pair of control feathers is also not elongated, but has a length of 4.2 to 4.7 centimeters and is thus significantly shorter than the rest of the tail plumage.
The wings are long and round. The tarsus corresponds to about 27% of the wing length. The beak is very strong and one and a half times as long as the head and has a high beak ridge. It is 4.1 to 4.8 inches long in the males, the beak in the females is slightly shorter with 3.7 to 4.3 inches. The males weigh between 152 and 174 grams, the females are slightly lighter at 126 to 143 grams.
male
The male has a small but eye-catching beige feather tuff at the base of its beak. The parting is lavender gray and shimmers slightly purple in certain lighting conditions. On the sides of the head, the lavender gray turns into a beige; this part of the head also shimmers slightly purple when exposed to certain light. The coat and back are olive brown, the rump is a bit lighter, while the upper tail-coverts are a bit darker. The elytra are gray-brown, the Alula and the tips of the primaries are lightened to a whitish tone. On each wing there are two very elongated, white feathers of the small wing covers, which can be longer than the wings.
The beard, chin and throat are dark red-brown. Below is a breast shield made of intensely iridescent, emerald-green to bronze-colored green-yellow feathers, which are greatly elongated on the sides. With certain incidence of light, these can also shimmer blue-green. The lower breast and belly are olive colored, the rump and thighs are gray-brown. The beak is pale horn-colored, the iris is dark brown. The legs and feet are yellow-orange.
female
The female is almost entirely olive in color. The top of the body is a little darker and the underside of the body is a little lighter. The little feather tuff above the nostrils is smaller than that of the adult male. Females also do not have a lavender-gray crown and the crown plumage only shimmers purple to a small extent. The upper side of the tail plumage is gray-brown, the feather shafts of the central control feathers are whitish. The reins . the ear covers , the streak of beard, that chin and throat are pale fawn brown.
Fledglings and subadults
The male juveniles resemble the female at first, but have a slightly longer tail. Alfred Russel Wallace , who collected the type specimen of this species, noted during his field observations that individuals in the plumage of a female are significantly more common than the males and concluded from this that the males only carry the adult plumage from the third or fourth year of life. It is not yet known exactly at what age the subadult males begin to switch to the plumage of an adult male. On the basis of the findings for other sexually dimorphic birds of paradise, Wallace underestimated the point in time: in some species the change does not begin until the age of six to eight.
Subadult males initially have only a few feathers of the adult male plumage, in the final phase of the change, however, only a few feathers of the female plumage indicate their age. As a rule, it is the area of the wings and tail plumage where the change takes place last.
Distribution area and habitat
The banded bird of paradise is one of the comparatively few bird of paradise species that are not found in New Guinea. It occurs only on a few islands of the Moluccas , including Halmahera, the largest of the Moluccas. The islands of Kasiruta and Bacan are also settled .
The Moluccas are an Indonesian group of islands between Sulawesi and New Guinea. Halmaahera is the largest island in the archipelago with an area of 18,040 km². Bacan is a densely forested, hilly and volcanic island. It is located about 20 kilometers off the coast of the southern peninsula of Halmahera Island. Bacan's land area is around 1,900 km²; the highest point is about 2,111 meters above sea level. The hilly and densely forested Kasiruta is about 400 km² and is located a few kilometers from the northwest coast of Bacan.
On Halmahera, ribbon birds of paradise occur mainly at altitudes between 250 and 1000 meters. On Bacan, however, the country bird of paradise can still be found at altitudes of 1150 meters. On Halmahera, the distribution is disjoint . They occur here mainly in areas with steep slopes and limestone soils . The preferred habitat are sealed with Balsam tree plants , Eugenia , ebony trees , Vitex types, and Kauri-trees passed and have a dense, species-rich undergrowth in which Calamus dominate species. They are rare in the secondary forest, and even tall secondary forests are avoided by them.
There are two subspecies in the range:
- S. w. halmaherae Salvadori , 1881 - spread to Halmthera. This subspecies differs from the nominate form mainly in the color of the crown and neck. This iridescent pink to purple.
- S. w. wallacii ( GR Gray , 1859) - Kasiruta and Bacan.
Way of life
Banded paradise birds are mostly found in the lower treetop area. They are difficult to observe outside of the courtship areas because they are extremely shy and hardly noticeable in the dense foliage. Away from the courtship areas, they live alone or in pairs. Small groups of three to four individuals can only be observed occasionally. They are occasionally during the search for food with other species such as Goldschwanzbülbül ( Thapsinillas affinis ), eyewear Monarch , Maluku Monarch ( Myiagra galeata ), Yellow-bellied pig-headed ( Pachycephala pectoralis ) and Glanzspitzendrongo ( Dicrurus bracteatus to watch). However, they are very difficult to identify in these groups. It is certain that numerous males of the ribbon bird of paradise come to the traditional football fields at night to rest.
Banded birds of paradise are predominantly fruit-eaters. The proportion that fruits play in meeting their nutritional needs is estimated at 50 to 75 percent. They prefer to eat small fruits with a diameter of less than 1 centimeter. In addition, they eat arthropods. You can find this animal food mainly on the leaf canopy of palm trees. Alfred Russel Wallace, who kept some individuals of this species for a while and then exported them to Great Britain, describes them as skillful insectivores. Much like many other birds of paradise, they hold insects like grasshoppers or large tropical cockroaches with one foot while using their beak to remove their legs and wings. He also observed ribbon birds of paradise in their search for insects. He compared their ability to hold on to tree trunks to that of woodpeckers. In view of the fact that they are not related to woodpeckers, Frith and Beehler consider the comparison with the Epimachus species, which also belong to the birds of paradise , to be more appropriate.
Reproduction
The males are polygynous , which means that they mate with as large a number of females as possible. The partners do not enter into a marriage-like relationship after the pairing, but separate again immediately afterwards. The females build the nest on their own and raise the offspring on their own.
The courtship has only been observed a few times in the wild. Similar to the species from the genus of the actual birds of paradise, the males of the ribbon bird of paradise court in groups on a lek . As far as we know, courtship begins in April during the dry season and ends with the beginning of the rainy season around September. The breeding season falls at least in the months May to September.
Until the end of the 20th century, only one nest of the ribbon bird of paradise was found in the wild. Since the state bird of paradise is rarely kept in zoological gardens, little is known about the breeding and rearing of the nestlings. The nest found on May 9th contained only one egg. When the nesting site was revisited on June 9, it contained a nestling that flew out that month.
Systematics
The skull has the typical features of the actual birds of paradise and, within this subfamily, is particularly similar to the genera Reifelvögel , Seleucidis and Paradisaea . The courtship behavior also shows similarities with the Paradisaea species. Like the females of this genus, the females are not transversely banded on the underside of the body.
attitude
Banded birds of paradise are rarely kept in zoological gardens. Wallace exported some individuals to Great Britain in 1869, however, and in the United States a male and another individual were kept at the Washington Zoo in the 1930s by the New York Zoological Society.
Trivia
For a long time there was disagreement about the spelling of the specific epithet . George Robert Gray reported a new species of birds of paradise at a meeting of the Zoological Society of London in 1859. In his oral report he only referred to a letter and a sketch by Alfred Russel Wallace, who had collected the type specimen in 1858 on Bacan . Gray received the type specimen later. In the minutes of this meeting, the specific epithet was recorded as wallac e i , while Gray later used the specific epithet wallacii . The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature decided in 1990 that wallac i i was the mandatory spelling of the specific epithet.
literature
- Bruce M. Beehler, Thane K. Pratt: Birds of New Guinea; Distribution, Taxonomy, and Systematics . Princeton University Press, Princeton 2016, ISBN 978-0-691-16424-3 .
- Clifford B. Frith, Bruce M. Beehler : The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1998, ISBN 0-19-854853-2 .
- Eugene M McCarthy: Handbook of Avian Hybrids of the World. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2006, ISBN 0-19-518323-1 .
Web links
Single receipts
- ↑ a b Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 417.
- ↑ standardwing-bird-paradise-semioptera-wallacii Handbook of the Birds of the World zum Bänderparadiesvogel , accessed on October 11, 2017
- ↑ a b c Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 418.
- ↑ a b c Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 419.
- ↑ a b c Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 420.
- ↑ a b c Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 427.