Yellowtail Paradise Hop
| Yellowtail Paradise Hop | ||||||||||||
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Yellowtail Paradise Hop |
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| Drepanornis albertisi | ||||||||||||
| ( Sclater, PL , 1873) |
The yellow-tailed paradise hop ( Drepanornis albertisi ), also called yellow-tailed sickle hop , is a species from the genus Drepanornis within the family of the birds of paradise (Paradisaeidae). It occurs exclusively in New Guinea . The males are polygynous and occupy territories that they defend for several years.
Like most bird of paradise species, which are not restricted to a few islands or individual mountain ranges, the species is classified as least concern by the IUCN . There are two subspecies.
features
Body type and measurements
The yellow-tailed paradise hop is one of the medium-sized birds of paradise with a body length of up to 35 centimeters. The tail plumage measures between 12.8 and 14.1 centimeters in the male. The female, which is slightly smaller than the male with an average body length of 33 centimeters, has almost the same length of tail plumage with a length between 12 and 13.7 centimeters.
The beak is 7.2 to 8.3 inches long in the males, the beak is 7.9 to 8.1 inches long in the females. The males weigh between 105 and 125 grams, the females tend to be a little heavier at 105 to 138 grams.
male
In the male, the head plumage is red-brown to cinnamon-brown. The crown plumage shines purple. The reins , chin and throat are dark green with an intense metallic sheen. The elongated dark feathers on the forehead form small feather horns directly in front of the eye, the shorter feathers above the eyes have an intense violet-blue shine, while the feathers extended to the horns can have an intense magenta shimmer in certain light conditions. The featherless skin of the face is dark gray-brown.
The top of the body and the top of the wings are cinnamon brown, on the rump and the upper tail-coverts this tone lightens up a bit. The tail plumage is pale cinnamon-colored on the upper side, the feather shafts have a dark clay tone and thus stand out somewhat.
The front breast is olive-brown and framed at the bottom by a broad band of elongated feathers with an intense blue-violet sheen. The lower breast and flanks are also olive brown. The middle of the abdomen, the rump and the under tail-covers are white. The underside of the tail plumage is pale brown. The beak is glossy black, the iris is dark brown. The inside of the beak is pale green to pale yellow.
female
The female does not have any parts of the plumage that are shiny or iridescent like the male. Otherwise it largely corresponds to the male on the upper side of the body, but is a little darker. The chin and throat are cinnamon brown with feather shafts that are a little lighter. The rest of the underside of the body is cinnamon to reddish brown. In most individuals, the red-brownish tones are limited to the rump and the under tail-coverts. As is typical for many females of the birds of paradise, the underside of the body is dark, cross-banded.
Fledglings and subadults
Young birds of both sexes initially resemble the female. However, they have a longer tail plumage than the adult birds of both sexes.
Subadult males have a female-like plumage with individual feathers or body parts that correspond to the plumage of the adult male. With increasing age, the proportion of plumage that corresponds to that of the adult male increases until ultimately they only show a few feathers that correspond to the female plumage.
voice
So far, no vocalizations have been recorded by the females - they behave very inconspicuously, just like the females of other birds of paradise. Only the males can be heard who have three characteristic sounds: a contact call, a song with which they announce their presence and a courtship song. The contact call is a simple wrenh reminiscent of the contact calls made by other species within the subfamily of the True Birds of Paradise. The males let this call be heard again and again while they are looking for food.
The song with which the males announce their presence is a series of loud, very rapid whistling tones; dyu dyu dyu dyu dyu dyu dyu dyu , whereby the individual same things rise faster and faster and usually a little bit at the pitch. They usually call for a little over three seconds. The calls can still be heard from a distance of 450 meters. This singing can be heard mostly in the early hours of the morning and late afternoon, with the males usually taking up traditional singing vaults high up in the treetops. Occasionally this singing tower also rises above the other treetops.
The courtship calls are very similar to the song with which the male announces his presence. However, the singing is slightly higher in pitch, has a more insistent effect on people and ends with a series of tish-tish-tish-tish-tish-tish-tish-tish syllables. Unlike the singing with which the males announce their presence, the Baligesang is performed by branches in the lower treetop area. Occasionally they sit on branches that are only one meter above the ground.
Slight regional differences were found in the calls. The males found in the Fakfak Mountains call slower and more frequently with a sloping pitch.
Distribution area and habitat
The distribution area of the Yellowtail Paradise Court extends over all of New Guinea. It occurs from the mountains on the Vogelkop to the southeastern tip of this largest island in the world after Greenland. However, the distribution is markedly disjoint . For example, it seems to be completely absent in the west of the central mountain range of New Guinea, in the Indonesian part of New Guinea the main distribution area is on the Vogelkop and Bomberai peninsulas . In the east of the island, however, the yellow-tailed paradise hop seems to be more common. It occurs there as far as the extreme southeast of the island, such as on the Huon Peninsula .
The altitude distribution of this species ranges from 600 to 2250 meters. however, the main area of distribution is between 1100 and 1900 meters above sea level.
Two subspecies are distinguished in the large distribution area:
- There. albertisi ( PL Sclater , 1873) - Occurrences in mountains that do not belong to the central mountain range in central New Guinea. The range includes the Vogelkops Mountains, the Wandammen and Huon Peninsula and probably the Fakfak Mountains and the Foja Mountains . The nominate form has a very fragmented distribution area, which Frith and Beehler describe as peculiar. They think it is possible that the division into subspecies will be abandoned in the future.
- There. cervinicauda P. L. Sclater , 1884 - Central high mountains of New Guinea from the Weiyland Mountains to the mountains in southeast New Guinea.
The distribution area of the yellow-tailed paradise hop overlaps with that of numerous other birds of paradise. Unlike many other species of this family, however, no hybrids have been described for the yellow-tailed paradise hop.
The habitat of the yellow tail paradise hop are mountain forests. They are seldom seen in regions with logging and on the edges of forests.
Way of life
Females are occasionally associated with other species. They are considered to be very difficult to observe.
Yellowtail paradise hops find their food mainly on the lower branches of tall trees overgrown with epiphytes . They cover most of their nutritional needs with insects, but also consume a wide range of smaller fruits. The proportion to which they meet their nutritional needs with animal food is estimated at around 943 percent. The majority of them are arthropods . Yellowtail Paradise Courts use their very specialized beak to examine tree bark, dead wood , knot surfaces and knotholes. They hold larger insects with one foot on a perch, while they tear the prey apart with their beak.
Most of the observations of yellowtail paradise hops looking for food have been made for males: as is characteristic of birds of paradise, the females can only be heard rarely, while the males call comparatively frequently. In all observations, they looked for food in trees at a height between 8 and 28 meters. The beak is usually used in the form of tweezers. Occasionally, however, they open their beak very wide in order to examine narrow knotholes for prey with only their upper or lower beak.
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.
In contrast to the species of the genus of actual birds of paradise, for example, the males do not court together on a lek , but occupy individual territories all year round. The combination of polygyny, a permanent courtship area and an almost exclusively insect-dependent diet is unique within the bird of paradise family.
The males of the yellowtail paradise hops occupy individual territories which, according to previous knowledge, they defend for several years. A male ringed with colored license plates at Mount Missim, Papua New Guinea, occupied an area of around 15 hectares. The Bali Park, in which he courted for four consecutive years, was in a small area in this primary forest. Four other males had their territory in the immediate vicinity of this area. The distance from the baliwarts averaged 450 meters. A radio-equipped female in the same area roamed 43 hectares during the eight-day period when her behavior was closely monitored.
The male first lets his courtship song be heard in the early hours of the morning from a high stand guard and then comes down to a tree sapling, where he begins to courtship in front of females. As is typical for many male birds of paradise, courtship is a process of ritualized acts. The male also hangs below the branches. During courtship, both its elongated chest plumage and the elongated flank feathers are prominently presented.
Very little is known about nest building and the rearing of young birds. On the basis of the males calling and courting at Mount Miesem, it is concluded that the mating season at least in this region of Papua New Guinea falls between October and November. A young bird begging the female parent bird for food was observed in November.
Dedication names
The specific epithet honors the Italian explorer Luigi Maria d'Albertis , who was the first European to see and collect this bird in the Arfak Mountains region in 1872 . D'Alberts knew immediately that this was a new genus and species of birds of paradise. With his discovery he was only slightly faster than the German naturalist Adolf Bernhard Meyer , who also collected yellowtail paradise hops in the Arfak Mountains that same year. The specimen collected by d'Alberts, however, is not the type specimen that provided the basis for the first scientific description. This was collected on the Sattelberg on the Huon Peninsula.
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 Handbook of the Birds of the World on the Gelbschwanz-Paradieshopfl , accessed on October 11, 2017
- ↑ a b Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 377.
- ↑ a b c d Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 379.
- ↑ a b c Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 378.
- ↑ a b c d e Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 381.
- ↑ Calls of the Yellow Tail Paradise Hop on Xeno-Canto , accessed on October 14, 2017
- ↑ a b c Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 380.
- ^ McCarthy: Handbook of Avian Hybrids of the World. P. 228.
- ↑ Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 382.
- ↑ Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 383.