Shelley shine star

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shelley shine star
Shelley Glanzstar (Lamprotornis shelleyi), Omo, South Ethiopia

Shelley Glanzstar ( Lamprotornis shelleyi ), Omo, South Ethiopia

Systematics
Order : Passerines (Passeriformes)
Subordination : Songbirds (passeri)
Family : Starlings (Sturnidae)
Subfamily : Sturninae
Genre : Actual glossy starlings ( Lamprotornis )
Type : Shelley shine star
Scientific name
Lamprotornis shelleyi
( Sharpe , 1890)

The Shelleyglanzstar ( Lamprotornis shelleyi ) from the genus of the actual glossy starlings ( Lamprotornis ) is an endemic species of bird from the family of the starlings (Sturnidae) in the order of the passerine birds (Passeriformes) that lives in eastern Africa . He has a very shiny metallic, iridescent plumage in blue, green to purple tones and a rust-brown belly. Its distribution area is in dry to semi-arid bush savannahs with trees and clear soil. It feeds mainly on various insects and fruits.

features

Physique and plumage

The Shelley gloss star looks very similar to the Hildebrandt gloss star and differences are hardly noticeable. The plumage on the upper side has uniformly strong iridescent metallic shimmering colors. Its plumage consists of so-called structural feathers, which evoke their colors by refraction of light without pigments. The special shine is caused by the melanosomes embedded in the structure of the feathers , which are under a keratin film . The special feature of these melanosomes are their platelet-like and hollow shape. The platelets are simple, multilayered or arranged alternately (alternately).

The forehead, crown and back of the head show themselves in a shiny purple, which is clearly delimited towards the neck. The nape and back of the neck form a dark green shiny collar. Shoulders, back, rump and tail form a uniformly shiny purple-blue upper side and the underside of the tail feathers are blackish brown. The reins between the beak and the eye and the ear covers form a matt black mask. The chin, throat and uppermost part of the chest appear in a shiny purple-blue tone. The chest and stomach have a relatively even rust-brown color that becomes slightly darker towards the rump. The outer wing feathers of the wing are in a blue-violet tone, which then appear in the forearm and hand feathers in a shimmering, metallic shimmering bronze-green. The black tips of the outer and middle flight feathers delimit the wing sections and form rows of dark points on the attached wings. The underside of the wing appears in a dark purple-blue tone. The beak and legs are black.

The characteristics of juveniles differ significantly from adult birds. They lack the sheen of the adult shelley glossy starlings and only show a pale and matt sheen. From the top of the head over the back, they appear gray-brown. The underside is a yellowish brown, which changes from the belt area over the rump to the lower tail feathers in a yellowish brown.

eye

The eyes of the shelley gloss star appear reddish to yellowish orange. Like most birds, apart from the nocturnal species, the magnificent starlings see their environment differently than we humans. In contrast to humans, the star has four and not just three types of photoreceptors (also called photoreceptors ) on the retina for color vision . In addition to the thinner rod-shaped receptors responsible for black and white vision, four cone-shaped receptor types are responsible for perception in starlings (tetrachromatic vision). Three of the four cone-shaped receptor types are responsible for the area of ​​light that is also visible to humans (trichromatic vision), which make the three primary colors red, green and blue visible. The fourth receptor is responsible for the perception in the area of ultraviolet light , which is not visible to humans. The incidence of light stimulates the various types of receptors within the strongly folded membranes, which are provided with different colored oil droplets, with different intensities. The responsible receptors react more or less strongly to the different wavelengths of light, so that the different colors and hues are perceived. The additional UV receptor compared to humans allows starlings to perceive our environment in a much more differentiated or different way. With the help of the UV receptors, they are able to better and more easily recognize differences in their fellow species, the degree of ripeness of the fruit or UV-reflecting traces that we cannot see.

Distinguishing features from the Hildebrandt star

It is very difficult to differentiate between Shelley gloss star and Hildebrandt gloss star in nature. The reddish orange eyes and the similar color scheme on the head and upper chest area can hardly help there. The main and most recognizable difference is on the lower chest and stomach. The Shelleyglanzstar has a largely uniform rust-brown color in this area, whereas the Hildebrandt-Glanzstar has a lighter brownish-orange color in the chest area up to the belt area, where it has a visible color change to a lighter chestnut brown. The greenish areas in the neck and on the wing of the adult shelley gloss star, which are usually more intense, can be an additional indication.

Vocalizations

The conversation sounds of the shelley gloss star are a mixture of whispering, nasal and rasping calls. He often incorporates the nasal calls repeatedly into his conversation.

Distribution area of ​​the Shelleyglanzstar ( Lamprotornis shelleyi )

Habitat and Distribution

Its distribution area has a size of about 658,000 m² and is endemic to East African countries. It is a migrant species and its range in which it breeds extends north of central Ethiopia, to the northeast of Somalia and from the southeast of South Sudan , across the south and east of Ethiopia to the Somali border area. Its southern distribution area, in which it is considered non-breeding, extends from southern Somalia to southern Kenya and the extreme tip in northeastern Tanzania.

In South Sudan and Somalia he prefers dry and semi-arid thorn bush savannas, which in Sudan are often bushes of the toothbrush tree ( Salvadora persica ). In Kenya, it is preferred in areas with acacia species ( Acacieae ) and the species-rich Commiphora bushes and trees and uses the crowns of the Commiphora trees as a preferred vantage point. Its habitats are regularly from the lowlands up to 1800 m above sea level in its northern and up to 1300 m in the southern distribution area.

Way of life and behavior

The Shelley gloss star is considered to be a more shy species than the Hildebrandt gloss star or the three-color gloss star. It prefers clear grassland with trees and usually lives there in small groups during the breeding season. Outside the breeding season, it occurs not only in smaller groups, but also in flocks of up to hundreds of birds, in which other Lamprotornis species, such as the nomadic two-color star ( Lamprotornis bicolor ) or the three-color star ( Lamprotornis superbus ), may also be involved, depending on the region .

Its diet consists of insects and fruits. During migration in Kenya, it is often encountered during the fruitful time of the Salvadora Bush along the Tana River.

Reproduction

The shelley starlings usually build their nests in natural tree hollows. These are often located in thorny trees at a height of between 1.5 and 3 m. They also use crevices in the rock that appear suitable and, in Ethiopia, also termite mounds. The nests are mostly padded with grass and feathers, but sometimes only the wood shavings lying in the tree hollow on the ground are sufficient. Mostly they lay 4 to 6 bluish to turquoise-blue eggs, which are approx. 26 × 18 mm in size and with brown spots. The breeding season varies from region to region between April and June and it is assumed that the Shelley Glanzstar possibly also breeds twice in the season.

Hazardous situation

There is no reliable information on the size of the world population, but the species is considered to be frequent and stable in its range. The Shelleyglanzstar is therefore classified by the IUCN as safe (“least concern”).

Systematics

The Shelleyglanzstar, together with the Hildebrandt-Glanzstar, forms the basal clade to the remaining sister clades of the genus actual glossy starlings ( Lamprotornis ) which consists of at least 22 species.

 Lamprotornis  




Hildebrandt gloss star ( Lamprotornis hildebrandtii )


   

Shelley gloss star ( Lamprotornis shelleyi )






Etymology and history of research

Richard Bowdler Sharpe described the Shelley shine star under the name Spreo shelleyi . The type specimen came from the museum of Ethelbert Edward Lort Phillips (1857-1944) and was collected in Somaliland . In 1820 Coenraad Jacob Temminck led the genus Lamprotornis u. a. for the red shoulder gloss star ( Lamprotornis nitens ( Linnaeus , 1766)), to which the Shelley gloss star was later assigned. The term “Lamprotornis” is derived from the Greek words “lamprotēs, lampros λαμπροτης, λαμπρος ” for “splendor, radiant” and “ornis όρνις ” for “bird”. The name »shelleyi« is dedicated to George Ernest Shelley (1840–1910), who wrongly identified the type specimen in 1885 as Hildebrandt's brilliant star ( Lamprotornis hildebrandti ).

literature

  • Charles Hilary Fry , Stuart Keith , Emil K. Urban (Eds.): The Birds of Africa. Volume VI: Picathartes to Oxpeckers. Christopher Helm, London 2000, ISBN 978-0-12-137306-1 , pp. 624-625.
  • AJFK Craig, CJ Feare: Family Sturnidae (Starlings). In: J. del Hoyo, A. Elliot, DA Christie (Eds.): Handbook of the birds of the world. Volume 14: Bush-shrikes to Old World Sparrows. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona 2009.
  • Frederike Woog: Seeing and being seen - the color vision of birds. In: The falcon. - Journal for Bird Watchers, 5/2009. ( schattenblick.de ).
  • Rafael Maia, Dustin R. Rubenstein, Matthew D. Shawkey: Key ornamental innovations facilitate diversification in an avian radiation . Biological Sciences - Evolution: PNAS, 2013, 110 (26), pp. 10687-10692; published ahead of print June 10, 2013, doi: 10.1073 / pnas.1220784110 .
  • Bird coloration. Vol. 1: Mechanisms and Measurements; Vol. 2: Function and Evolution . GE Hill / KJ McGraw, 2006.
  • IJ Lovette, DR Rubenstein: A comprehensive molecular phylogeny of the starlings (Aves: Sturnidae) and mockingbirds (Aves: Mimidae): Congruent mtDNA and nuclear trees for a cosmopolitan avian radiation. In: Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 44, No. 3, September 2007, pp. 1031-1056. Elsevier, doi: 10.1016 / j.ympev.2007.03.017 , columbia.edu ( Memento from June 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF), accessed on March 22, 2015.
  • IUCN Redlist of threatened species. Version 2015.2
  • James A. Jobling: Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names . Christopher Helm, London 2010, ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4 .
  • Richard Bowdler Sharpe: Catalog of the Birds in the British Museum . tape 13 . Order of the Trustees, London 1890 ( online [accessed November 12, 2015]).
  • Coenraad Jacob Temminck: Manuel d'ornithologie, ou Tableau systematique des oiseaux qui se trouvent en Europe; Précédé d'une table alphabétique des Espèces . 2nd Edition. tape 1 . H. Cousin, Paris 1840 (French, biodiversitylibrary.org [accessed November 12, 2015]).
  • George Ernest Shelley: On Mr. E. Lort Phillip's Collection of Birds from Somali-land. In: The Ibis (=  5 ). tape 3 , 1885, p. 389-418 ( onlinebiodiversitylibrary.org [accessed November 12, 2015]).

Web links

Commons : Shelleyglanzstar ( Lamprotornis shelleyi )  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l CH Fry, S. Keith, EK Urban: The birds of Africa. Volume VI. Academic Press, London 2000, pp. 624-625.
  2. ↑ Rafael Maia, Dustin R. Rubenstein, Matthew D. Shawkey: Key ornamental innovations facilitate diversification in an avian radiation . In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . tape 110 , no. 26 , June 25, 2013, ISSN  0027-8424 , p. 10687-10692 , doi : 10.1073 / pnas.1220784110 ( pnas.org ).
  3. ↑ a b AJFK Craig, CJ Feare: Family Sturnidae (starlings) . In: J. del Hoyo, A. Elliot, DA Christie (Eds.): Handbook of the birds of the world. Volume 14: Bush-shrikes to Old World Sparrows. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona 2009
  4. ↑ Frederike Woog: See and be seen - color vision of birds. In: The falcon. - Journal for Bird Watchers 5/2009. ( Schattenblick.de ).
  5. ↑ a b BirdLife International (2015) Species factsheet: Lamprotornis shelleyi . ( birdlife.org ). Retrieved September 2, 2015.
  6. ↑ The IUCN Red list of threatened species. Version 2015.2. ( Redlist ). Retrieved September 5, 2015.
  7. ↑ Irby J. Lovette, Dustin R. Rubenstein 2007: A comprehensive molecular phylogeny of the Starlings . ( Memento of the original from November 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF) columbia.edu, 2015; accessed on March 22, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.columbia.edu
  8. ^ A b Richard Bowdler Sharpe, pp. 187 & 190.
  9. ^ Coenraad Jacob Temminck, S. LV-LVI.
  10. ↑ James A. Jobling, p. 218.
  11. ↑ George Ernest Shelley, p. 412