Narrow-tail paradise hop
| Narrow-tail paradise hop | ||||||||||||
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Narrow-tail paradise hop |
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| Epimachus meyeri | ||||||||||||
| Finsch & Meyer , 1885 |
The narrow-tailed paradise hop ( Epimachus meyeri ), also known as brown-bellied paradise hop , narrow-tailed sickle hop or brown-bellied bird of paradise , is a species from the genus Epimachus within the family of birds of paradise (Paradisaeidae). It occurs exclusively in New Guinea.
Unlike the closely related broad-tailed paradise hop , this species is classified by the IUCN as safe ( least concern ). Several subspecies are distinguished.
features
Body type and measurements
The narrow-tailed paradise hop is one of the larger birds of paradise with a body length of up to 49 centimeters. Including the greatly extended middle pair of control springs, the males even reach a length of 96 centimeters. The rest of the tail plumage measures 23 to 28 centimeters, so that the middle pair of control feathers, which is 63 to 82 centimeters long, clearly towers above it. The female, which is slightly larger than the male with an average body length of 52 centimeters, also has an elongated central pair of control feathers. However, this only reaches a length of 25 to almost 36 centimeters, the rest of the tail plumage has a length between 17.8 and 25 centimeters.
The beak is 7.8 to 9 centimeters long in the males, in contrast to 6.6 to 9.1 centimeters in the females and is strongly curved in both sexes. Females weigh between 162 and 188 grams, the males are slightly heavier at 253 to 310 grams. Although they are longer than the crowded paradise crow , they are nowhere near the weight of this bird of paradise, which weighs up to 440 grams. There is a pronounced sexual dimorphism - the female is significantly less pinnate than the male.
male
The head is black, but under certain light conditions the scale-like feathers on the top of the head and face are noticeable, which shimmer with an intense metallic green-blue to purple and magenta. The coat and back are velvet black with a green-blue to magenta shimmer. This shimmer is particularly pronounced on a series of large, scale-like feathers that run along the upper middle of the body. The rump is velvety black with a purple sheen. The tail plumage is brown-black on the upper side with a metallic dark blue shimmer on the outer flags. This gloss is even more intense on the extended middle pair of control springs and ranges from green-blue to magenta-colored.
The chest plumage is dark brown with a purple sheen, especially on the sides of the body. On the sides of the chest are very elongated, velvet black feathers with a magenta shimmer. Elongated feathers are also found along the belly and rump sides, their broad tips shimmering blue-green. The feathers of the flanks are also elongated and have a fawn-brown color with straw-colored spring shafts. The under tail coverts are olive colored. The tail plumage is glossy black-brown on the underside. The beak is black. The eyes are pale blue. The legs and feet are dark gray to blackish. The inside of the beak is bright yellow.
female
The forehead, crown and neck are reddish brown. The reins and the sides of the face, like the chin and throat, are dark black-brown. The female is also finely spotted on her chin and throat. The coat up to the upper tail-coverts is olive-brown, the tail plumage is a little more earth-brown. The front chest is slightly lighter than the throat and can be a dirty reddish brown. The entire underside of the body shows a dark brown transverse change from the chest. Overall, there is a great similarity to the female of the broad-tailed paradise hop.
Fledglings
Fledglings initially resemble the female, but the coat and crown are more bright rust-brown. They then change to a plumage that is indistinguishable from that of the adult female. However, male juveniles have tail plumage that is more noticeably longer than that of adult females. Subadult males that are not yet sexually mature then gradually develop a plumage in which they initially only have individual feathers or individual parts of the body that resemble the adult male. The change to the plumage of the adult male usually begins on the vertex and then extends to the entire head plumage. With each subsequent moult, the proportion of plumage that resembles that of an adult male increases.
voice
The call of the male is sometimes compared to the sound of a pneumatic hammer. The widely audible call is one of the characteristic sounds in the mountain forests of the central New Guinean highlands. It can still be heard by humans from a distance of more than two kilometers. When calling, the male throws his head far back; each call is accompanied by noticeable movements of the throat, chest and wings. The males perceive their neighbors through the calls; presumably each male can perceive at least three rivals acoustically.
Both sexes also emit greenish-blue, females also chuckle like a chicken or emit a barking ugh . The males also produce widely audible instrument sounds with their wings , which are compared to the wing-buzzing of chicken birds such as hazel grouse . However, the wing noises are very loud and can be heard regularly during the morning and late afternoon hours.
Distribution area of the subspecies and habitat
The narrow-tailed paradise hop belongs to the birds of paradise with a comparatively large distribution area: It extends over the central high mountains of New Guinea to the tip of the southeastern peninsula. It is missing on the Vogelkop , the large peninsula in the extreme northwest of New Guinea, where the closely related broad-tailed paradise hop is common.
The individual subspecies colonize the following regions:
- E. m. albicans - ( van Oort , 1915) - Central Mountains of New Guinea from the Weyland Mountains in the west to the Hindenburg Mountains and the Victor Emanuel Mountains.
- E. m. bloodi - Mayr & Gilliard , 1951 - Mountains in eastern New Guinea, the range includes the Hagen Mountains as possibly the most westerly range, Mount Giluwe and the Kraetkegebirge .
- E. m. meyeri - Finsch & AB Meyer , 1885 - Mountains in southeast New Guinea, including the Owen Stanley Mountains .
The narrow-tailed paradise hop occurs only in mountain forests and predominantly populates at altitudes between 1500 and 3200 meters. The main area of distribution is at altitudes between 1900 and 2900 meters. The narrow-tailed bird of paradise occurs at higher altitudes in the regions in which the distribution area of the broad-tailed paradise hop overlaps. They occur in both primary and secondary forest. The habitat is dominated by beeches , phyllocladus and screw trees, the branches of most trees have a thick layer of moss.
Way of life
In particular, the males of the narrow-tailed paradise hops are very shy and difficult to observe outside of their courtship areas. The females can be seen more often. Especially when they are looking for food, they are relatively uneasy and tolerate closer human contact.
The narrow-tailed paradise hop eats fruits, arthropods and small vertebrates. The proportion of fruits predominates slightly in the food composition. The vertebrates that are eaten include small frogs. One female kept in the UK even caught a house mouse, which she killed by repeatedly beating it against a branch and then tearing it apart with her beak.
Males seem to occupy a feeding ground in which they will not tolerate any other male. The presence of females, however, is tolerated in the feeding area. When searching for food, they search epiphytes for invertebrates, among other things. Among other things, they rummage through the crowns of screw trees, in which a lot of leaf waste often accumulates. They climb through the branches and leaves and often throw dead leaves or leaf parts out of the crowns. The noise they make can be heard from a distance and is often one of the first signs of the presence of narrow-tailed paradise hops. The rubbing of the long beak on branches or leaves as well as the choking up of plant seeds or stones can also be observed relatively frequently. Occasionally they come to the ground while foraging. They use their beak to tear bark from trees or to turn stones off with a quick head movement. They also occasionally drink from shallow water. A captive bird has repeatedly been observed to turn its head almost completely in order to dip its upward-pointing beak into the water.
Reproduction
Like the vast majority of birds of paradise, the narrow-tailed paradise courtyard is polygynous , which means that the male mates with several females if possible. The respective female raises the offspring alone. The males each defend a large area in which one or more traditional courtship areas are located. These courtship areas are individual waiting areas high up in the treetop area. In the wild, the male's courtship has not yet been observed.
Narrow-tailed paradise hop and man
Hunting
Feathers and hides of birds of paradise play an important role in the traditional head and body decoration of the indigenous population. The absence or the comparatively rarity of narrow-tailed paradise hops in some suitable habitats is attributed to hunting by the indigenous population. Overall, however, the effects of hunting pressure are not as strong as in the case of the broad-tailed Paradieshopf , as the narrow- tailed Paradieshopf occurs at higher altitudes far above the cultivation areas of the local population.
attitude
The first pair of narrow-tailed paradise hops were kept in the private collection of EJ Brooks at Hoddom Castle in 1909 . Since then, individuals of this species have been shown several times in zoological gardens. Some individuals have been described as extremely tame and very quickly took food from their keepers' hands. They need large indoor aviaries and are considered a species that is relatively easy to keep. However, they tend to use their beak to examine all objects in their aviary and injure their beak in the process.
Characteristics observed in captive birds can also be used to infer the longevity of this species. A male that was handed over to the Baiyer River Sanctuary , Papua New Guinea on September 13, 1978 and which initially still showed the plumage of a female, gave the jackhammer-like call typical of the male for the first time in July 1982. A year later it began to show the first feathers from an adult male. This individual only wore the full plumage of a male in May 1985. This leads to the conclusion that males only show the plumage of adult males at the age of seven to eight years.
Trivia
- The archbold bower bird and the golden hood gardener , both representatives of the bower birds , which sometimes imitate numerous bird calls, also imitate the calls of the narrow-tailed paradise hop.
- The specific epithet honors Adolf Bernhard Meyer , who was involved in the first scientific description.
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
- ↑ Handbook of the Birds of the World zum Schmalschwanz-Paradieshopf , accessed on August 6, 2017
- ↑ a b Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 368.
- ↑ C. Frith, D. Frith: Curl-crested Manucode (Manucodia comrii). In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, DA & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. 2017. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. ( Online , accessed July 9, 2017)
- ↑ a b Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 366.
- ↑ a b Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 367.
- ↑ a b Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 371.
- ↑ a b c d Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 369.
- ↑ a b Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 370.
- ↑ a b Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 375.
- ↑ a b Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 376.
- ↑ Clifford B. Frith, Dawn. W. Frith: The Bowerbirds - Ptilonorhynchidae . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-854844-3 . P. 303