Sonic Manucodia
| Sonic Manucodia | ||||||||||||
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Sonic manucodes, depicted by Richard Bowdler Sharpe |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Phonygammus | ||||||||||||
| Lesson & Garnot , 1826 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||||
| Phonygammus keraudrenii | ||||||||||||
| (Lesson & Garnot, 1826) |
The Schall-Manucodia ( Phonygammus keraudrenii ), also called Trumpeter Paradise Crow , is a crow - like -looking bird species from the family of birds of paradise (Paradisaeidae). The Schall-Manucodia occurs in New Guinea, in the far north of Australia and adjacent islands. Among the birds of paradise, the sonic manucodia is the species with the largest range. It is one of the few monogamous species of the birds of paradise. Due to the Australian distribution area, the Schall-Manucodia has been researched comparatively well in comparison to the species that only occur in New Guinea.
The IUCN classifies the existing situation of the Schall-Manucodia as safe ( least concern ). There are six subspecies.
description
Body type and measurements
The Schall-Manucodia is a comparatively large bird of paradise with a long, slightly tiered tail plumage.
It reaches a body length of up to 31 centimeters, of which between 11 and 13.3 centimeters in males and between 10.8 and 12.5 centimeters in females are due to the control springs . The beak has a length of 2.9 to 3.6 centimeters. The males weigh between 130 and 240 grams, the females are a little heavy at 130 to 182 grams. The sexes differ only slightly. The females remain slightly smaller than the males with a body length of up to 28 centimeters. They are also colored a little more dull. Their plumage shimmers more greenish blue than purple.
One of the anatomical peculiarities of the Schall-Manucodia is that the males have an elongated trachea, similar to the manucodes . The elongated windpipe lies in a loop on the chest muscles directly under the skin. This is one of the reasons why it was previously placed in this genus.
Appearance
The head, the neck and the nape are blue-black and shimmer blue-green with individual violet highlights when the light falls. The feathers on the back of the head, on the nape and on the lower neck are elongated and tapered to a point. The feathers above the eyes, which are also elongated, form striking "ears".
The coat, the back, the rump, the upper tail-covers and the top of the control feathers are blue-black with a very intense iridescent blue and dark purple highlights. The wings are black-brown with blue iridescent hems on the outside flags. The front breast and the rest of the underside of the body are black with an oily green-blue tail. Under certain lighting conditions, dark purple highlights are formed, especially on the breast plumage. The breast feathers are also elongated and tapered to a point. The under tail ceilings are more matt and have a less noticeable sheen. The control springs are black-brown on the underside. The beak, legs and feet are blackish to black. The iris is red with a fine dark brown inner ring.
Distribution area, subspecies and habitat
The distribution area of the Schall-Manucodia, which is very large for a bird of paradise, extends from Vogelkop in the far west of New Guinea to the D'Entrecasteaux Islands in eastern New Guinea and the Australian Cape York Peninsula . The individual subspecies occur in the following regions:
- P. k. keraudrenii (Lesson & Garnot, 1826) - Western New Guinea (Vogelkop, Onin Halbisnel and Weyland Mountains)
- P. k. jamesii - Sharpe, 1877 - Plains in southern New Guinea from the Mimika River to Port Moresby and the islands in the north of the Torres Strait (Boigu and Saibai), Aru Islands
- P. k. neumanni Reichenow, 1918 - Mountains of the north coast of New Guinea, parts of the mountains in the interior and mountains in the northeast of New Guinea.
- P. k. purpureoviolaceus - AB Meyer, 1885 - Highlands in southeast New Guinea.
- P. k. hunsteini Sharpe, 1882 - D'Entrecasteaux Islands, a group of islands in the Solomon Sea , east of New Guinea. The Schall-Manucodia occurs here on the islands of Moratau , Nidula and Duau .
- P. k. gouldii (GR Gray, 1859) - Occurrence is limited to the Cape York Peninsula in the extreme northeast of Australia and the Australian islands of Albany Island and Mai Island just off the Australian coast.
The habitat of the Schall-Manucodia is almost exclusively the interior of rainforests. It occurs almost exclusively in primary forests and is rarely observed at the forest edges.
Way of life
The Schall-Manucodia lives solitary, in pairs or in small groups of four to six individuals. Troops move through the treetops together and are particularly noticeable by their calls. Basically, the Schall-Manucodia is a shy bird that reveals its presence mainly through its calls.
The Schall-Manucodia almost exclusively eats fruit and, according to current knowledge, is a fig specialist. In the few birds that have been observed more closely so far, various wild species made up 80 percent of the diet of this bird of paradise species. In addition to fruits, it also eats small invertebrates. The Schall-Manucodia is very aggressive when foraging for food: it drives away other birds of paradise and other fruit-eating songbird species from fruit-bearing trees. It looks for its food almost exclusively in the upper canopy area, but stays inside the canopy area and also avoids the canopy of trees that protrude over the closed canopy area.
Reproduction
Breeding season and courtship
The Sonic Manucodia is monogamous. The breeding season falls from May to January. It is part of courtship that the male chases the female through the foliage of tree tops. It also mates in front of the female, sticking its beak up and raising the feathers on its head, neck and throat. In other observations, the male also opened its wings and raised its tail plumage. The male calls out very loudly and turns the upper side of the wing towards the female. The calls can be heard from late morning until late afternoon. Schall-Manucodien have no specific playing field, the male mates opportunistically as soon as he has caught the female.
Nest and clutch
The nest is built high in trees in forks of branches. Both parent birds are involved in building the nest, which is attached to the branches with parts of creepers and hangs between them. The inside of the nest is padded with finer creeper components. So far only a few nests have been measured; One nest was 20 centimeters in diameter and 10 centimeters in height. The inner nest cup had a diameter of 10 centimeters. Another nest was 15.2 centimeters in diameter and 6.3 centimeters high.
The clutch consists of one or two eggs with a pink base color typical of the subfamily Phonygamminae . The shell also shows brown, purple and gray strokes, as they are typical of the other subfamily of the birds of paradise, the actual birds of paradise .
Both parent birds breed. The change at the nest takes place without calls - the previously brooding bird slides away from the edge of the nest as soon as the other nesting bird appears at the nest.
Nestlings
Both parent birds hover and feed the nestlings. In a nest observed more closely in New Guinea, the parent birds brought food to the nest 3.4 times an hour on average. The parent birds kept in contact with each other by shouting when he of the two parent birds was not directly at the nest. Most of the food that the parent birds brought up the nest for the nestlings was figs.
Breeding community with the mangrove crow shrike
Already at the beginning of the 20th century it was recorded for the Australian populations of the sonic manucodia that they prefer to nest near the mangrove shrike. This was also noted for populations near Port Moresby in the 1960s.
It is the sonic manucodes that seek the proximity of the mangrove shrike and build their nest near this species of shrike . On the Cape York Peninsula it has been observed that sonic manucodes, which have not yet laid eggs, give up their nest if the attempt at breeding by the mangrove shrike fails and they give up their nest. This suggests that the sonic manucodes are specifically looking for the proximity of Mangrkove cloven shrike, because they keep away nest predators with their aggressive behavior. However, sonic manucodes attack the mangrove shrike when they get too close to the nest.
attitude
Sonic manucodes have been kept in individual zoological gardens, including from 1965 to 1967 in the Taronga Zoo in Sydney. Sonic manucodes were shown in London Zoo as early as 1908, and in 1916 they even laid an egg. In the 1930s the species was shown by the New York Zoological Society. Sonic manucodes are very active and aggressive towards other bird species, but they can be kept very well in a very large and well-lit aviary, which also has some shady areas.
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 .
Single receipts
- ↑ a b Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 230.
- ↑ a b c Handbook of the Birds of the World on the Grünparadieskrähe , accessed on July 9, 2017
- ↑ Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 220.
- ↑ Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 231.
- ↑ a b c Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 234.
- ↑ a b Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 238.
- ↑ Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 237.
- ↑ a b c Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 239.
- ↑ Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 240.