Blue-necked mouse bird
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Blue-necked mouse bird ( Urocolius macrourus ) |
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| Urocolius macrourus | ||||||||
| ( Linnaeus , 1766) |
The blue-naped mousebird ( Urocolius macrourus ) is an African bird from the family of the mouse birds .
features
The 34 cm long, plump blue-necked mouse bird has brown or gray fur-like plumage with a feather hood and a blue neck. The elongated central tail feathers make up more than half the body length. He can point the first and fourth toes both forwards and backwards, which makes him very flexible. Frequent soft and whistling, two-syllable calls are made both in flight and from a seat attendant.
Occurrence
The distribution area extends in a wide band south of the Sahara from Senegal to Somalia and from there south to Tanzania . The bird is a resident of the thorn bush savannah .
behavior
The blue-naped mouse bird is a very sociable animal that lives in groups of 20 to 30 individuals, with whom it breeds, takes dust baths, searches for food and cleans itself extensively. It feeds mainly on green leaves, which are slow to digest. In addition, fruits, seeds and insects complete the diet.
Reproduction
The messy, shallow shell nests made of plant material, often lined with green leaves, are built quite close together in a bush or tree. The clutch of three eggs on average is incubated for around two weeks.
Subspecies
There are six known subspecies:
- Urocolius macrourus macrourus ( Linnaeus , 1766) - The nominate form occurs in Mauritania , Senegal and Gambia as far as eastern Ethiopia .
- Urocolius macrourus laeneni ( Niethammer , 1955) - This subspecies occurs in the Aïr Mountains in Niger .
- Urocolius macrourus abyssinicus Schifter , 1975 - This subspecies is common in central and southern Ethiopia to northwest Somalia .
- Urocolius macrourus pulcher ( Neumann , 1900) - This subspecies occurs in the southeast of Sudan and southern Somalia via Kenya to northeast Uganda and northern Tanzania .
- Urocolius macrourus griseogularis van Someren , 1919 - The distribution area of this subspecies is the south of Sudan and the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and east to the west of Tanzania.
- Urocolius macrourus massaicus Schifter , 1975 - This subspecies occurs in the central and eastern part of Tanzania.
literature
- Colin Harrison, Alan Greensmith: Birds. Dorling Kindersly Limited, London 1993 and 2000, ISBN 3-8310-0785-3 .
- Bryan Richard: Birds. Parragon, Bath, ISBN 1-4054-5506-3 .
- Oscar Rudolph Neumann: Contributions to the bird fauna of East and Central Africa. The birds I collected and observed on my expedition through the Maasai countries and in the countries at Victoria Nyansa 1892–1895 . In: Journal of Ornithology . tape 48 , no. 2 , 1900, p. 185-228 ( online [accessed August 29, 2015]).
- Herbert Schifter: Subspecies and distribution of the blue-necked mouse bird Urocolius macrourus (Coliiformes, Aves) . In: Annals of the Natural History Museum in Vienna . tape 79 , 1975, pp. 109–182 ( PDF on ZOBODAT [accessed August 29, 2015]).
- Victor Gurney Logan Van Someren: Dr. VG van Sommeren Exhibited and Described the Following new forms from Africa, Which FORMED part of a magnificant collection he had recently Brought home: . In: Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club . tape 40 , no. 245 , 1919, pp. 19–28 ( online [accessed August 25, 2015]).
- Günther Niethammer: On the bird life of the Ennedi Mountains (French Equatorial Africa) . In: Bonn Zoological Contributions . tape 6 , no. 1/2 , 1955, pp. 29–81 ( zoologicalbulletin.de [PDF; 5.8 MB ; accessed on August 25, 2015]).
- Carl von Linné: Systema Naturae per Regna Tria Naturae, Secundum Classes, Ordines, Genera, Species, Cum Characteribus, Differentiis, Synonymis, Locis . 12th edition. tape 1 . Laurentii Salvii, Stockholm 1766 ( online [accessed 25 August 2015]).
Individual evidence
Web links
- Urocolius macrourus onthe IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2015.2. Listed by: BirdLife International, 2012. Retrieved August 29, 2015.
- BirdLife International: Species Factsheet - Blue-naped Mousebird ( Urocolius macrourus ) . Retrieved August 29, 2015.
- Videos, photos and sound recordings of Blue-naped Mousebird (Urocolius macrourus) in the Internet Bird Collection
- Blue-necked mouse bird ( Urocolius macrourus ) at Avibase; accessed on August 29, 2015.
- Urocolius macrourus in the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS)
- xeno-canto: Sound recordings - Blue-necked mouse bird ( Urocolius macrourus )