Glamor star
| Glamor star | ||||||||||||
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Enlightenment star ( Lamprotornis chalcurus ) |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Lamprotornis chalcurus | ||||||||||||
| Nordmann , 1835 |
The Erzglanzstar ( Lamprotornis chalcurus ) of the genus authentics starlings is a common in southern Africa passerine bird of the family of Stare (Sturnidae). It has an iridescent , shimmering plumage and lives in the sub-Saharan areas from West to East Africa and feeds on various insects and fruits. The enlightenment star is divided into two subspecies .
history
Lamprotornis chalcurus was first described by Alexander Davidovich von Nordmann in Senegal and published under the protonym Lamprotornis chalcura in - Naturhistorischer Atlas Vol. 1 by Georg Adolf Erman, p. 8, 1835. AD von Nordmann lived from 1803 to 1866 and made many discoveries and wrote initial descriptions in his life. In the German-speaking area, the one he discovered and published in 1838 by Ch. Stevens' first described Nordmann fir ( Abies nordmanniana ), named after Nordmann, is best known. Its official botanical abbreviation is "NORDM.".
features
Physique and plumage
The glamorous star is between 19.5 and 23 cm tall and weighs around 63 grams. The plumage on the upper side has uniformly strong iridescent , shimmering shimmering colors. It has so-called structure feathers, which produce their colors without pigments by refraction. The special shine is caused by the melanosomes embedded in the structure of the feathers in the melanocytes , which are under a keratin film . The special feature of these melanosomes are their platelet-like and hollow shape. The platelets are single and / or multi-layered. They can be arranged uniformly in their order or alternating (alternating). The top with the head, neck and wings are in blue-green iridescent, metallic shimmering colors, whereby the umbrella feathers are provided with purple tips. The reins between the eyes and beak are black and the ear-covers are purple. The back and rump are kept in blue to purple tones. The short tail is purple with glossy, bronze-colored upper tail-covers . The underside of the chin, over the throat and chest, as well as the thighs and the lower tail feathers, are blue-green. In contrast, the belly is purple. The beak and lower legs are black. The two subspecies differ mainly in the different lengths of the wings and tails as well as the more bluish tinted compared to the stronger purple tinted rump.
The juveniles are blackish with a slight bluish hue on the top, while the underside has cloudy sooty colors. The control springs have a greenish tinge.
eyes
The iris of the eyes glows yellow / orange, whereas the iris of the juvenile is still dark. Like most bird species, except for the nocturnal birds, the white starlings see their environment differently than we humans. In contrast to humans, the star has four and not only three types of photoreceptors (also called photoreceptors ) on the retina . In addition to the thinner rod-shaped receptors responsible for black and white vision, four cone-shaped receptor types are responsible for perception in starlings (tetrachromatic vision). Three of the four cone-shaped receptor types are responsible for the area of light that is visible to humans (trichromatic vision), which make the three primary colors red, green and blue visible. The fourth receptor is responsible for the perception in the area of ultraviolet light , which is not visible to humans. The incidence of light stimulates the various types of receptors within the strongly folded membranes, which are provided with different colored oil droplets, with different intensities. The responsible receptors react more or less strongly to the different wavelengths of light, so that the different colors and hues are perceived. The additional UV receptor compared to humans allows starlings to perceive our environment in a much more differentiated or different way. With the help of the UV receptors, the star is able to better and more easily recognize differences in other conspecifics, the degree of ripeness of the fruit or traces that we cannot see.
Utterance
The singing consists of a whispering, rattling, nasal sound. The contact call sounds like "dju-wii-jurr" ( Xeno canto : none known (May 2015)).
Its flight noises are relatively loud.
Habitat and Distribution
The adult star lives in the countries south of the Sahara from the west coast of Senegal , Gambia , Guinea-Bissau and Guinea , through southern Mali , Burkina Faso , northern Ivory Coast and Ghana . Further to the east is the story of southern Niger , northernmost Togo and Benin as well as northern Nigeria , southern Chad , the Central African Republic , northern Cameroon, the southwest corner of Sudan , the Republic of South Sudan , the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo as well as Uganda and the western Kenya regionally widespread.
In most regions, the star is considered to be year-round, regionally endemic, but in Sudan, southern Ghana and Gambia, however, it tends to migrate seasonally in order to avoid excessively high humidity or even wetness. It is less common in western Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The glamorous star prefers open bushland and thinly forested areas, but also settles in cultural landscapes and urban environments. Its distribution area amounts to about 2.45 million km² and it lives regionally differently from about 500 meters (Kenya from about 1000 meters) to about 2000 meters above sea level . Occasionally he was also found over 2000 meters. In some parts of its habitat there are also other species of common starlings.
In the predominantly French-speaking area it is called "Choucador à queue violette" and in the more English-speaking areas it is called "Bronze-tailed Glossy Starling".
Way of life
The enlightening star feeds primarily on insects and fruits on the ground, but also occasionally in trees. There are reports that the glamorous star also plundered slaughter products in the human environment. During the breeding season they appear in pairs. Outside of the breeding season, the sociable bird occurs in smaller and occasionally in large flocks. It also forms these together with other glossy starlings such as Lamprotornis chloropterus and Lamprotornis chalybaeus .
Reproduction
The breeding seasons are relatively short (2–3 months), regionally at very different times and lie between February and August. He builds his nests in tree hollows or tree stumps that are lined with grass, leaves and feathers. The female lays up to four smooth, elongated oval, pale blue eggs, which may be speckled orange-brown, and incubates them on their own (further details are not known).
Existence and endangerment
There is no reliable information on the size of the world population. However, the species is considered common in most of its regional range and the population is to be regarded as stable. The IUCN currently classifies the population of the glamorous star as not endangered (“least concern”). Overall, the documentation situation on the glossy starling is to be classified as low, especially since it is difficult to differentiate in the field from the glossy brass star ( Lamprotornis chloropterus ).
Systematics
The enlightening star stands within the genus actual glossy starlings ( Lamprotornis ) in a direct family group (super species) with seven other species. According to sequential DNA analyzes, the sister species of the glamorous star is the red-shouldered gloss star ( Lamprotornis nitens ).
Two subspecies of the educational star are known:
- Lamprotornis chalcurus chalcurus , ( Nordmann , 1835)
- Lamprotornis chalcurus emini , ( Neumann , 1920)
These two subspecies live largely separated from each other. The subspecies L. c lives in the areas from Senegal to northern Cameroon . chalcurus and from northern Cameroon to western Kenya the other subspecies L. c. emini . Both species live together in Cameroon.
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literature
- Craig, A. & Feare, C. (2009). Animal (D) (Lamprotornis chalcurus). In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, DA & de Juana, E. (eds.) (2014). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. ( online ) Retrieved March 21, 2015.
- "BirdLife International (2015) Species factsheet: Lamprotornis chalcurus." ( Online ) Accessed April 12, 2015
- Charles Hilary Fry , Stuart Keith , Emil K. Urban (Eds.): The Birds of Africa. Volume VI: Picathartes to Oxpeckers. Christopher Helm, Academic Press London 2000, ISBN 978-0-12-137306-1 , pp. 600-601.
- IJ Lovette, DR Rubenstein 2007: A comprehensive molecular phylogeny of the starlings (Aves: Sturnidae) and mockingbirds (Aves: Mimidae): Congruent mtDNA and nuclear trees for a cosmopolitan avian radiation. In: Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 44, No. 3, pp. 1031-1056. Elsevier, September 2007, DOI: 10.1016 / j.ympev.2007.03.017 . ( online PDF ( memento of June 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on March 22, 2015.)
- Oscar Rudolph Neumann: New genera and subspecies of African birds . In: Journal of Ornithology . tape 68 , no. 1 , 1920, p. 77-83 ( online [accessed May 19, 2015]).
- Frederike Woog Seeing and being seen - color vision of birds in: Der Falke - Journal für Vogelbeobachter 5/2009. ( Online at Schattenblick.de . Accessed July 11, 2015.)
- GE Hill & KJ McGraw (Eds, 2006): Bird Coloration. Vol. 1: Mechanisms and Measurements; Vol. 2: Function and Evolution .
- Rafael Maia, Dustin R. Rubenstein and Matthew D. Shawkey in: Key ornamental innovations facilitate diversification in an avian radiation. Biological Sciences - Evolution: PNAS 2013 110 (26) 10687-10692; published ahead of print 10 June 2013, doi : 10.1073 / pnas.1220784110 . Full text . Retrieved March 26, 2015.
Web links
- Bronze-tailed Starling (Lamprotornis chalcurus) - Flickr
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Afrika-Verbreitungsgebiet-Lamprotornis_chalcurus.png
Individual evidence
- ↑ Rafael Maia, Dustin R. Rubenstein and Matthew D. Shawkey in: Key ornamental innovations facilitate diversification in an avian radiation ; Biological Sciences - Evolution: PNAS 2013 110 (26) 10687-10692. [1]
- ↑ a b c d e f A. Craig & C. Feare (2009). Bronze-tailed Glossy Starling (Lamprotornis chalcurus). In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, DA & de Juana, E. (eds.) (2014). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. ( Online ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ). Retrieved March 21, 2015.
- ↑ Frederike Woog Seeing and being seen - color vision of birds in: Der Falke - Journal für Vogelbeobachter 5/2009. ( Online at Schattenblick.de ). Retrieved July 11, 2015.
- ^ A b Charles Hilary Fry, Stuart Keith, Emil K. Urban (Eds.): The Birds of Africa. Volume VI: Picathartes to Oxpeckers. Academic Press, London 2000. pp. 600-601.
- ^ BirdLife International, species factsheet ( online ). Retrieved April 12, 2015.
- ↑ Irby J. Lovette, Dustin R. Rubenstein: A comprehensive molecular phylogeny of the Starlings. 2007. ( Archive link ( Memento of the original from November 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. Retrieved on March 22 2015.
- ↑ IOC World Bird List Nuthatches, Wallcreeper, treecreepers, mockingbirds, starlings & oxpeckers
- ↑ Oscar Rudolph Neumann, p. 81.
