Thread hop
| Thread hop | ||||||||||||
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Thread hop ( Seleucidis melanoleucus ) in the Bronx Zoo, New York |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Seleucidis | ||||||||||||
| Lesson , 1834 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||||
| Seleucidis melanoleuca | ||||||||||||
| ( Daudin , 1800) |
The twelve-wired bird-of-paradise ( Seleucidis melanoleucus ), also Zwölffädiger bird of paradise or thread Bird of Paradise called, is a species from the family of birds of paradise (Paradisaeidae). It is the only representative of the monotypic genus Seleucidis and occurs exclusively in New Guinea and Salawati . Among the birds of paradise, the species is one with the most noticeable sexual dimorphism . Males and females share almost no feature of the plumage.
The IUCN classifies the stock situation of the Fadenhopf as safe ( least concern ).
features
Body type and measurements
The males of the thread hop reach a body length of 33 centimeters, the females, on the other hand, are slightly larger than the males with a body length of 35 centimeters, which is due to their slightly longer tail plumage. The wing length is 16.7 to 18.5 centimeters in the males, 15.8 to 17.1 centimeters in the females. The tail plumage of the males is between 6.2 and 8.6 centimeters long, in the females it measures 10.2 to 11.3 centimeters. It is comparatively short compared to other types of birds of paradise. The tail plumage is not tiered, but ends in a straight line. The middle pair of control feathers is slightly shorter than the rest of the tail plumage. The wings are long, the outermost hand wings are slightly inclined inward and taper to a point in the female.
The beak is long, straight and very narrow. Its shape is reminiscent of that of the Reifelvögel , one of the species of the birds of paradise, but is less curved. It has a total of twice the length of the head and measures between 6.5 and 7.5 centimeters in males. In females, it is slightly shorter at 5.7 to 6.9 centimeters. The tongue is long and very flexible. The feet are strong and in both sexes have long, curved, gray claws that contrast strikingly with the otherwise coral-colored feet and legs. The eyes are red.
Males weigh 190 to 217 grams, while the females weigh 186 to 188 grams.
male
The male has a velvety black head, which, depending on the incidence of light, shimmers from a dull copper green to purple. The purple shimmer is particularly pronounced on the top of the head. From the coat to the upper tail-coverts and the small wing coverts, the plumage is velvety black with an oily greenish sheen. The large and middle wing covers and the upper side of the tail plumage shimmer intensely from dark purple to magenta, depending on the incidence of light. The wings of the hand are black.
The chin, throat and chest are velvet black and can shimmer slightly yellowish-green in certain lighting conditions. The feathers at the lower end of the breast are slightly elongated and have intensely emerald green shimmering tips. The feather base has a purple shimmer, which is seldom seen due to the overlapping feathers. They can be set up to form a collar.
The rest of the underside of the body including the silk-like elongated and slightly inwardly curved flank feathers are intensely yellow feathered. Six flank feathers are conspicuously elongated on each side of the body: Their feather shafts, which are white at the base, merge into thread-like black shafts that protrude far beyond the flank feathers and are bent outwards. At the end these thread-like spring shafts are white again. The fine ends of these shafts spirally frame the end of the body. Only in the case of flying males are these decorative feathers straight and then correspond to about two thirds of the body length.
The beak is glossy black. The inside of the beak is greenish.
female
As with almost all birds of paradise of the subfamily of the actual birds of paradise , the female has brownish plumage. Due to the coral-colored legs and the lack of an over-eye stripe or beard stripe, they can hardly be confused with any other female.
The females have a black skull and an upper coat. Even with them, the plumage shines violet when exposed to certain light. The rest of the top of the body is maroon. The region of the beard stripe and the region from the throat to the front breast is white-gray and initially has small spots, then a fine black cross-mark. The rest of the underside of the body is pale reddish brown with a slightly more intense cinnamon tone on the chest, the flanks, the rump and the under tail covers. Here, too, the plumage is finely and evenly banded across black. The underside of the tail is cinnamon brown.
The legs and feet are a slightly duller coral pink than that of the males. The beak is gray, the eyes reddish like the male.
Subadults
Young birds initially resemble the female. Subadult males take several years to show the plumage of an adult male. In this transition phase they initially have plumage that is largely similar to the female, but individual feathers or parts of the body already resemble the adult male. Afterwards, they sometimes have a plumage that partly corresponds to the female, partly to the male and which is very noticeable. The head often corresponds to that of the adult male, the breast plumage still partly shows the plumage of a female, while the wings, tail plumage and the lower body underside in turn correspond to the adult male.
The transition phase to male plumage can be very long: the New York Zoological Society received a male in August 1929 that was still fully plumed like a female. It was not until mid-1934, when the bird was at least five years old, that it began to show individual feathers from the male. He developed the complete plumage of a male during a moult, which lasted from March 20 to June 25, 1936. The bird was at least seven years old at the time.
Young birds initially have a pale blue iris, which then turns yellow with increasing age. Only in adult birds does the iris gradually turn red.
Distribution area and habitat
The thread hop is a species widespread in New Guinea. It is only missing in the northeast of Papua New Guinea and on the southeastern peninsula east of Port Moresby , because the coastline there is immediately steep and mountainous. The thread hop is also found on Salawati . The island with an area of 1623 km² is one of the four main islands of the archipelago of Raja Ampat , which lies off the coast of western New Guinea ( Indonesia ). Salawati is located in the east of the archipelago directly in front of the bird head peninsula of New Guinea .
Two subspecies are distinguished in the large distribution area:
- S. m. melanoleucus (Daudin, 1800). The nominate form occurs on Swalati as well as in the west and south of New Guinea. It occurs in New Guinea from Vogelkop to the Mamberamo watershed and in the south to Port Moresby .
- S. m. auripennis Schlueter , 1911. This subspecies colonizes a comparatively small distribution area in the north of New Guinea, which extends from Mamberamo to space.
The Fadenhopf inhabits the rainforests of the lowlands. As a rule, it does not occur higher than 180 meters in altitude. The thread hop is particularly common in swamp forests that are temporarily or year-round flooded and where screw trees and sago palm dominate. It is said that the Fadenhopf prefers to stay at the forest edges that border on water. Frith and Beehler point out, however, that this is a false conclusion, since the exploration of New Guinea by Europeans mainly followed rivers and thread hops are easier to spot from the water.
General way of life
String hops are generally rather shy birds. Even the more conspicuous males can hardly be made out in the treetop area. They reveal their presence mainly by their loud shouts. Flying males, on the other hand, stand out comparatively strongly against the background of the green forest vegetation with their bright yellow flank feathers. During the flight tss tss tss sounds can be heard, which the Fadenhopf generates as instrumental sounds with the wings. The sound is sometimes compared to the song of the silk nectar bird ( Leptocoma sericea ).
Occasionally several males can be seen together away from the courtship areas. String hops use traditional resting places during the night.
food
The diet of thread hops consists of fruits, nectar and insects. It is believed that both food components play an equally important role.
The preferred fruits are those of the screw trees . Otherwise, like other birds of paradise, they eat a wide range of fruits. They search the bark and epiphytes for invertebrates in the upper treetop area. When foraging for food, they occasionally join other species of birds. Their strong feet and claws make it possible for them to hang upside down from branches while searching for food, for example to check knotholes for insects. They occasionally hold larger fruits with their feet and tear them to pieces with their beak.
While foraging they occasionally with species such as rufous-Paradieshopf , Little Bird of Paradise , superb Bird of Paradise , Gold Monarch ( Carte Ronis chrysomela ), gray breast fantail ( Rhipidura rufidorsa ) Glanzspitzendrongo ( Dicrurus bracteatus ) and Aruschnäpper ( Microeca flavovirescens socialized).
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 males usually courtship from July to January with a peak in the months of August to December. Oviposition was observed in January, February, May and in the period from August to October.
Courtship area
In contrast to the closely related birds of paradise, there is no group courtship in the Fadenhopf, but the males each occupy a single courtship area. The distance between the individual mating sites is on average 730 meters. Individual studies have also shown that courtship areas are used at least occasionally for several years: A single courtship area in the Elevara Range, Papua New Guinea was occupied from 1986 to 1996 every year from July to August.
The male mates on dead tree trunks that reach far beyond the rest of the vegetation. No other type of bird of paradise uses such exposed football fields. In the early morning they let their calls be heard by these waiting people for about an hour.
Nest, clutch and rearing of the young birds
The females build the nest alone, breed alone and raise the young alone. They breed in cup-shaped tree nests.
The few nests that have so far been found in the wild were either in the crowns of screw trees or sago palms. The nesting trees were not far from rivers. As a rule, the clutch consists of only one single egg; clutches with two eggs are rare. The incubation period is 20 days. The nestling remains in the nest for about 21 days after hatching.
Life expectancy
Threadhops are long-lived birds - males do not switch to adult plumage until they are several years old. A female is known from captivity who brooded at the age of 23.
Position within the family of birds of paradise
The thread hop has characteristics that indicate a close relationship to the Reifel birds and the genus of the actual birds of paradise . It shares features of the plumage with the mature birds. Both the tire birds and the threadhopper have pale, light coral-colored legs and red eyes. Like the real birds of paradise, the tongue is long and flexible. The eggs have the elongated spots and hairline typical of birds of paradise and are most similar to those of real birds of paradise and reifel birds. Similar to the actual birds of paradise, the thread hop has elongated flank feathers. Six of the flank feathers on each side of the body are elongated like a thread and correspond in length to the flank feathers of the actual birds of paradise.
String hops and humans
hunt
The feathers of a number of birds of paradise are made into traditional head and body decorations by the indigenous ethnic groups of New Guinea. With a few exceptions, this jewelry is worn exclusively by men. The feathers and bellows of the male thread halls with their silk-like elongated flank feathers are also used in the processing of such jewelry. Hunting takes advantage of the fact that thread yards have traditional resting places.
Keeping in captivity
The first living thread hop that was brought to Europe was presented to the Italian king before 1881 and survived in human care for several months. London Zoo received an individual in 1881 that could be cared for for almost a year. Another individual was shown to the public for more than 13 years. A thread hop held by the New York Zoological Society in the early 20th century lived in captivity for 23 years.
The thread hop was first successfully bred in 1995 in Jurong Bird Park .
Trivia
- Captive male thread hops require occasional papayas feeding to maintain their yellow flank plumage.
- In the type specimens kept in museums, the flank plumage no longer shows the intense yellow tone. It immediately fades to a whitish tone after the bird dies. The specific epithet melanoleuca indicates this. It means black and white.
literature
- Michael Apel, Katrin Glas, Gilla Simon (eds.): Natural and cultural history of the birds of paradise. Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-00-035219-5 .
- 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 .
- Mark Cocker, David Tipling: Birds and People . Jonathan Cape, London 2013, ISBN 978-0-224-08174-0 .
- Clifford B. Frith, Bruce M. Beehler : The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1998, ISBN 0-19-854853-2 .
- W. Grummt , H. Strehlow (Ed.): Zoo animal keeping birds. Verlag Harri Deutsch, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-8171-1636-2 .
- Eugene M McCarthy: Handbook of Avian Hybrids of the World. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2006, ISBN 0-19-518323-1 .
- Thane K. Pratt, Bruce M.. Beehler: Birds of New Guinea . Princeton University Press, Princeton 2015, ISBN 978-0-691-09562-2 .
Web links
- Videos, photos and sound recordings of Seleucidis melanoleuca in the Internet Bird Collection
- Handbook of the Birds of the World zum Fadenhopf
- Avibase data set Fadenhopf ( Seleucidis melanoleuca ) (Daudin, 1800)
- Seleucidis melanoleucus inthe IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2013.2. Listed by: BirdLife International, 2012. Retrieved February 2, 2014.
- Voice of the thread head on Xeno-Canto
Single receipts
- ↑ a b c Clifford B. Frith, Bruce M. Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1998, ISBN 0-19-854853-2 , p. 427.
- ↑ Twelve-wired Bird-of-Paradise (Seleucidis melanoleucus). In: Handbook of the Birds of the World. accessed on August 30, 2017.
- ↑ a b c Clifford B. Frith, Bruce M. Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae. 1998, p. 428.
- ↑ a b c d e Clifford B. Frith, Bruce M. Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae. 1998, p. 430.
- ↑ a b c d Clifford B. Frith, Bruce M. Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae. 1998, p. 438.
- ↑ Clifford B. Frith, Bruce M. Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae. 1998, p. 432.
- ↑ a b c Clifford B. Frith, Bruce M. Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae. 1998, p. 431.
- ^ A b Clifford B. Frith, Bruce M. Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae. 1998, p. 437.
- ^ A b Clifford B. Frith, Bruce M. Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae. 1998, p. 433.
- ↑ Clifford B. Frith, Bruce M. Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae. 1998, p. 436.
- ↑ W. Grummt, H. Strehlow (Ed.): Zoo animal keeping birds . Verlag Harri Deutsch, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-8171-1636-2 p. 749.
- ↑ W. Grummt, H. Strehlow (Ed.): Zoo animal keeping birds. 2009, p. 754.