Large honey indicator
| Large honey indicator or black throat honey indicator | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Large honey indicator |
||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||
|
||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||
| Indicator indicator | ||||||||||
| ( Sparrman , 1777) |
The Large Honey Indicator ( Indicator indicator ), also called Black-throated Honey Indicator , is a medium-sized member of the woodpecker bird family with a body length of 18 to 20 centimeters and a weight of up to 55 grams . They are the largest species within the genus of the actual honey indicators . They mainly eat insects, but are also able to digest beeswax. They don't eat honey, however.
Large honey indicators have gained greater notoriety because they cooperate in unusual ways with honey badgers, gorse cats and humans to get to bees' nests. They are also compulsory brood parasites that allow their offspring to be raised by other bird species.
Appearance
These birds have brown back plumage. The belly and underside of the tail are white, the beak is orange, and the legs and throat are black. The large, white spot under the eye is noticeable. In contrast to the male, the female has a white collar and a yellowish color of the abdomen. Its thick skin protects it from bee stings.
Special anatomy
Large honey indicators break the wax down into digestible fatty acids with the help of fungi and bacteria living in their intestines; They also have a well-developed sense of smell, which is otherwise untypical for birds.
distribution and habitat
This species inhabits the savannah areas in Africa, south of the Sahara desert .
Way of life
The birds have a very conspicuous, loud, chattering voice, with which they inform other conspecifics about the location of honeycombs and ant nests. This also draws the attention of predators such as the honey badger or the gorse cat to such nests, which they can then open. After the honey badger or other animals have made good themselves at the nest, the bird preyes on insects that are otherwise inaccessible to it, such as honeybees, wax moths, their larvae and wax. The birds often stay in trees and small hills to survey the area for beehives and predators.
Large honey indicators also cooperate with humans to get at beeswax and larvae. This cooperation is particularly well studied for Kenya, where members of the Borana can find honey by following the large honey indicator. The Borana have developed a special whistle to attract large honey indicators. If a large honey indicator hears this and knows the location of such a nest, it approaches the person and shows a noticeably restless flight behavior, in which it emits a penetrating tirr-tirr . The bird then flies in the direction of the nest - presumably to check the location - and then back to the human. For the Borana, the length of time the Great Honey Indicator is absent is an indication of how far away the nest is: the faster the bird returns, the closer the nest is. Large honey indicators then fly towards the nest and wait for the borana to follow them. The Borana whistles again to signal that it will follow. The large honey indicator resumes its flight towards the nest when the borana has approached within five to fifteen meters. In doing so, it usually fans out the white outer feathers of the tail, which makes it more easily visible to humans. The closer humans and birds get to the nest, the shorter the flights become. In the immediate vicinity of the nest, the bird calls differently and begins to circle the nest.
Both humans and the Großer Honiganzeiger benefit from the cooperation. Honey-gathering Borana need an average of nine hours to find a bee's nest without the assistance of the Large Honey Indicator. With the help of the bird, the time drops to an average of three hours. In 96% of the cases examined, the bee's nest was not accessible to the Great Honey Indicator without human support - for example because it was in a knothole that first had to be broken open with tools.
NB Davies points out that the Borana claim that the Big Honey Gauge is even capable of fraud. If the nest is more than two kilometers away, the bird tries to persuade them to cooperate with falsely short flights. Davies also points out that this cooperation between humans and birds used to be common in large parts of Africa. However, due to different living conditions and in particular the increasing use of sugar as a sweetener, this cooperation with the honey indicator is increasingly less practiced.
Reproduction
This species is a breeding parasite and lays its white eggs in the nests of woodpeckers, bearded birds , bee-eaters, and other species. The naked, blind chicks are equipped with a sharp hooked bill and use it to kill the young birds of their host parents and then throw them out of the nest. The young birds feed on smaller insects and fruits. After the young birds have left the nest, they form smaller groups that look for food together.
Danger
Due to its wide distribution and that no endangerments are known for this species, the IUCN classifies this species as ( Least Concern ) not endangered.
literature
- Wilhelm owner (ed.), Erna Mohr: Encyclopedia of the animals. Volume 2, Weltbild, Augsburg 1991, ISBN 978-3-89350-361-2 , pp. 348-349.
- NB Davies: Cuckoos, Cowbirds and Other Cheats. T & AD Poyser, London 2000, ISBN 0-85661-135-2 .
- Paul A. Johnsgard: The Avian Brood Parasites - Deception at the Nest . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1997, ISBN 0-19-511042-0 .
- Ann Baggaley (ed.): Lexicon of the animals. Translated from the English by Michael Kokoscha. Dorling Kindersley, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-8310-1434-7 , p. 149.
- Christopher M. Perrins : The Great Encyclopedia of Birds. From the English, Orbis-Verlag, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-572-00810-7 , pp. 210, 212.
- Jiří Felix (eds.), Jaromír Knotek, Libuše Knotková: African fauna in color. Translated from the Czech by Roland Schür. Karl Müller Verlag, Erlangen 1989, pp. 71-72.
- Goetz Rheinwald (ed.), Cyril Walker: Atlas of the bird world. Unipart, Remseck near Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 978-3-8122-3399-6 , p. 144.
- The great world empire of the animals. Planet Media, Zug 1992, ISBN 3-8247-8614-1 , pp. 288, 289.
- Christopher M. Perrins (Ed.): The FSVO encyclopedia birds of the world. Translated from the English by Einhard Bezzel. BLV, Munich / Vienna / Zurich 2004, ISBN 978-3-405-16682-3 , pp. 396-397 (title of the English original edition: The New Encyclopedia Of Birds. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2003).
Web links
- Indicator indicator in the Red List of Threatened Species of the IUCN 2015.3. Listed by: BirdLife International, 2012. Retrieved September 25, 2015.