Purple chicken
| Purple chicken | ||||||||||
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Purple Grouse ( Pophyrio porphyrio ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||
| Porphyrio porphyrio | ||||||||||
| ( Linnaeus , 1758) |
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The purple gallinule ( Porphyrio porphyrio ) is a bird art from the family of rallidae .
features
The purple hen has a body length of 45 to 50 centimeters and a wingspan of 80 to 100 centimeters. The female weighs up to 735 grams, the male up to 685 grams. This makes it significantly larger than the coot . The plumage is dark blue and shimmers purple. The under tail-coverts are white. The beak, legs and forehead shield are bright red. The latter is a little paler in winter. Its long legs and toes allow the purple hen to climb in dense vegetation, which no other kind of railing does. When young, the plumage is gray with individual gray-white feathers on the middle of the abdomen, the legs and beak are gray-pink.
voice
The purple chicken usually calls at night in a plaintive voice, drawn out and trumpeting nasally. Long episodes are often shouted that are very loud and sensational. Furthermore, it calls out harder and more mechanical "prrrih prrrih prrrih", sometimes sounding shrill. The contact call is a smacking "chuck".
distribution
The purple hen is found in tropical and subtropical Eurasia , Africa and Australia . There are local populations in north-west Africa and south-west Europe as well as in Western Asia and the Caspian region . It is widely distributed in front and rear India , Indonesia , the Philippines and east to New Guinea , as well as on many Pacific islands, Australia and New Zealand . The species also occurs in sub- Saharan Africa and Madagascar .
- The nominate form P. p. porphyrio occurs in the Mediterranean area in small, more or less endangered populations in southwest Spain , Portugal, Tunisia , Algeria , Mallorca and Sardinia .
- The subspecies P. p. poliocephalus (including caspius and seistanicus ) occurs eastward from the southeast coast of Turkey .
- The subspecies P. p. madagascariensis , including aegypticus , is found in the Nile Delta , sub-Saharan Africa, and Madagascar.
habitat
The purple grouse breeds in the dense vegetation on the banks of lakes, swamps, lagoons and slow-flowing waters with low vegetation of reeds , rushes and sedges . To search for food, it also goes to adjacent land areas.
Inventory development
In the 20th century, the nominate form suffered severe populations in the very patchy distribution area in the West Palearctic as a result of the drying up and draining of wetlands in the Mediterranean area, and continued hunting and pesticide use until the 1980s. The population in Sicily has been extinct since 1950. Since the 1980s, because of intensive protection and management measures, it has been spreading again into abandoned areas. In northeastern Spain populations could be established again from 1990, on the Balearic Islands from 1992, in southeastern Spain from 1995 and in the French Pyrenees from 1996. The European stock of the nominate form P. p. porphyrio is estimated at 7000 to 7400 breeding pairs, with an increasing trend. The European population of the subspecies P. p. poliocephalus is estimated at 6200 to 27500 breeding pairs, also with an increasing trend.
Systematics
The taxonomy of the species is controversial. In 1998 about 20 taxa in the purple grouse complex ( genus Porphyrio ) were described, which were divided into five to six groups and, in the opinion of the author, in part probably represent allospecies . However, this splitting off of the subspecies as separate species was rejected in this form by the BirdLife Taxonomic Working Group. Although this working group is of the opinion that there are clear differences between the continental forms, it considers the data available for species delimitation to be insufficient and calls for further studies. The relationships in the contact zones between these taxa have not yet been adequately investigated; there is currently no comprehensive genetic investigation. So far it is only certain that the takahe are very closely related to the Australasian purple chicken Porphyrio (p.) Melanotus .
A more recent theory makes reference to the possible early spread of the purple hen by humans. This would make it easier to explain the bird's large area of distribution and its separate areas. Various crosses with other species would be possible in the newly populated habitats. This could have led to the various forms.
Subspecies:
- ( Porphyrio porphyrio porphyrio ), nominate form, in Europe
- ( Porphyrio porphyrio bellus )
- ( Porphyrio porphyrio caspius )
- ( Porphyrio porphyrio indicus )
- Emerald Chicken ( Porphyrio madagascariensis porphyrio ) grünrückige form, distributed in sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar
- ( Porphyrio porphyrio melanopterus )
- Pukeko ( Porphyrio porphyrio melanotus ), common in Australia and New Zealand
- ( Porphyrio porphyrio pelewensis )
- ( Porphyrio porphyrio poliocephalus ), gray-headed form, widespread in tropical Asia
- ( Porphyrio porphyrio pulverulentus )
- ( Porphyrio porphyrio samoensis )
- ( Porphyrio porphyrio seistanicus )
- ( Porphyrio porphyrio viridis )
food
The purple chicken is omnivorous , it feeds mainly on sprouts , flowers, leaves, tubers and seeds of aquatic and marsh plants. Sometimes it also takes invertebrates , eggs, and nestlings .
behavior
Outside of the breeding season, the purple hen can be found in larger groups of up to 300 individuals. It is active during the day, at dusk and at night. It can keep itself very cleverly under cover, flies up steeply when disturbed and then lands again immediately with hanging legs. A territory is kept during the breeding season , sometimes in loose colonies. The pairs stay together for a breeding season. The male has aquatic plants in his beak during courtship. The mating is initiated by the female and takes about two to three seconds, the male stays longer on the female, there are several pairings in a row.
Reproduction
Sexual maturity occurs at one to two years of age. The large nest is created near water in thick vegetation. It is built from dead and living plant material and has one or two access routes, so-called ramps. Both partners build, but the male brings more building material.
The three to five oval, shiny cream-colored eggs with dark spots are usually laid every day from the end of March. The incubation period is 23 to 25 days. Both partners breed, but the female more.
The young birds hatch almost simultaneously and leave the nest after a few days as they flee the nest. They are led by both adult birds and from 10 to 14 days of age they also look for food independently, but are mostly fed up to the age of 25 to 40 days. They are fully fledged after about 60 days and independent at six to eight weeks.
swell
Individual evidence
- ^ BirdLife International (2004): Birds in Europe. Population estimates, trends and conservation status. BirdLife Conservation Series No. 12, Wageningen NL.
- ↑ Sangster, G. (1998): Purple Swamp-hen is a complex of species. Dutch Birding 20, pp. 13-22
- ↑ BirdLife International: Species Factsheet - Purple Swamphen ( Porphyrio porphyrio ) . Retrieved November 17, 2011.
- ↑ Bunin, JS; Jamieson, IG (1996): A cross-fostering experiment between the endangered takahe ( Porphyrio mantelli ) and its closest relative, the pukeko ( P. porphyrio ). New Zealand Journal of Ecology 20 (2), pp. 207-213
- ↑ Ricardo Jorge Lopes, Juan Antonio Gomez, Alessandro Andreotti, Maura Andreoni: Purple Swamphen or Gallinule (Porphyrio porphyrio) and Humans. Forgotten History of Past Interactions . Society & Animals 2016, pp. 1–22, Brill, 2016
- ↑ Itis: Porphyrio porphyrio (Linnaeus, 1758) Taxonomic Serial No .: 176390
literature
- H.-G. Bauer, E. Bezzel, W. Fiedler : The compendium of birds in Central Europe . Everything about biology, endangerment and protection. In: Nonpasseriformes - non-sparrow birds . 2. completely revised Edition. tape 1 . AULA-Verlag, Wiebelsheim 2005, ISBN 3-89104-647-2 .
- L. Svensson, PJ Grant, K. Mullarney, D. Zetterström: The new cosmos bird guide . All kinds of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Franckh-Kosmos Verlags-GmbH & Co., Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-440-07720-9 .
Web links
- Porphyrio porphyrio in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2008. Posted by: BirdLife International, 2008. Accessed on December 15 of 2008.
- Videos, photos and sound recordings of Porphyrio porphyrio in the Internet Bird Collection
- Feathers of the purple hen