Mountain nun
| Mountain nun | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Lonchura monticola | ||||||||||||
| ( De Vis , 1897) |
The mountain nun ( Lonchura monticola ), also known as the mountain reed finch , is a species of the finch family . There are two subspecies.
description
The mountain nun reaches a body length of eleven to twelve centimeters. There is no pronounced sexual dimorphism . The forehead and crown are black. The sides of the head and the throat are brown-black. The front breast is white and has faint brownish spots. The front breast is separated from the whitish underside of the body by a wide black transverse band. The back neck, back and wings are dark maroon. The rear rump and the upper tail-coverts are yellow. The sides of the body are roughly black and white spotted or banded. Thighs and under tail-coverts are black. The strong beak is bluish.
Fledglings are brown on the top of the body and have a brownish gray chest. The under tail-coverts are rust-colored. The rest of the underside of the body is yellowish white.
Distribution area and way of life
The range of the mountain nun is relatively small. It occurs exclusively in the high mountains of southeast New Guinea . Their habitat are altitudes between 2,800 and 3,900 meters above sea level. It occurs there preferentially in the alpine grassland and can often be observed near bushes, trees or rocks. The diet consists of bamboo and grass seeds. These are both picked from the ground and picked directly from the fruit stands.
As for the mountain nun and the black-breasted nun , which both also occur in the mountainous regions of New Guinea, relatively little is known about the way of life of the mountain nun.
literature
- Jürgen Nicolai (Ed.), Joachim Steinbacher (Ed.), Renate van den Elzen, Gerhard Hofmann: Prachtfinken - Australia, Oceania, Southeast Asia. Eugen Ulmer Verlag, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-8001-3249-4 .
- Peter Clement , Alan Harris, John Davis: Finches and Sparrows - An Identification Guide. Christopher Helm, London 1993, ISBN 0-7136-8017-2 .
Web links
- BirdLife Factsheet , accessed June 27, 2010
- Lonchura monticola inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Threatened Species . Listed by: BirdLife International, 2012. Retrieved October 9, 2013.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Nicolai et al., P. 228