Sickle tails

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Sickle tails
King's Bird of Paradise

King's Bird of Paradise

Systematics
Order : Passerines (Passeriformes)
Subordination : Songbirds (passeri)
Superfamily : Corvoidea
Family : Birds of Paradise (Paradisaeidae)
Subfamily : Actual birds of paradise (Paradisaeinae)
Genre : Sickle tails
Scientific name
Cicinnurus
Vieillot , 1816

The sickle tails ( Cicinnurus ) are a genus from the family of the birds of paradise (Paradisaeidae). It includes three species that occur on New Guinea and islands bordering on New Guinea. Two species, namely the bare-headed bird of paradise and the sickle- tailed bird of paradise , were temporarily placed in the genus Diphyllodes , whereby the king's bird of paradise was the only representative of the genus. However, this taxonomic classification has not caught on.

Sickletails are small, compactly built birds, in which the males have an elongated central pair of control feathers that have only very narrow feathers and thus act like wires. The bare-headed bird of paradise with a body length of 16 centimeters is considered the smallest member of the family. They feed on fruits and arthropods .

The IUCN classifies only one species as potentially endangered ( near threatened ) with the bare-headed bird of paradise . The other two types are considered safe ( least concern ).

features

Acorn tails are one of the small species among the birds of paradise. The bare-headed bird of paradise as the largest species in this genus only reaches a body length of 19 centimeters without the elongated tail plumage. It is also the heaviest type and weighs a maximum of 94 grams, while the other two types weigh between 40 and 60 grams.

All species have in common that the adult males have a wire-like tapered middle control spring pair that protrudes over the rest of the tail plumage. The structure of the skull shows some similarities with that characteristic of the species of the genus True Birds of Paradise . Other features point to the relationship with the ray birds of paradise , the pennant bearer and the collar bird of paradise .

Depiction of the bellows of a king's bird of paradise. The rolled-up ends of the central pair of control springs are clearly visible

The bill is straight and slightly longer than the head in sickle tails. The ridge of the beak is very narrow on the King's Bird of Paradise and the Naked-Headed Bird of Paradise. The tail plumage is not tiered, only the middle pair of control feathers is elongated. These control springs, which are limited to a very narrow outer vane, have a strong iridescent shine. They are rolled up at their ends to varying degrees: this is least pronounced in the sickle-tailed bird of paradise, the tail feathers only have a sickle-like, wide arch. The king's bird of paradise, on the other hand, has very dense and tightly rolled-up control springs. All three types have bright blue legs and feet.

The gender dimorphism is very pronounced. The males have a partly highly iridescent, shiny plumage - the wire-like control feathers are also very shiny. Feathers are elongated in the neck and form a collar that can be opened, which is used in courtship, among other things. All of them have a conspicuous, partly highly iridescent breast plumage with elongated feathers on the sides. This breast plumage also plays a role in courtship. The males can spread this far upwards.

distribution and habitat

Only the bare-headed bird of paradise does not occur in New Guinea and has so far only been observed on the islands of Waigeo and Batanta . The two islands belong to Raja Ampat , an archipelago in the Indo-Pacific west of New Guinea. The King's Bird of Paradise is widespread in New Guinea and occurs from the westernmost tip of the Vogelkop to the eastern tip of this island. It is also found on islands that directly border the coast of New Guinea. These include the Arus archipelago as well as Misool and Salawati and Yapen , an island in the Cenderawasih Bay . The sickle-tailed bird of paradise is also found on Yapen and Salawati. In New Guinea it is only missing in the southern half of the world's largest island after Greenland. The habitats of all three species are forests.

Reproduction

Sickletails are polygynous , which means that a male mates with several females whenever possible. The females raise the offspring alone. Males show only on Balzplatz a territorial behavior . There are differences in courtship behavior and in the selection of courtship areas: Studies on the king's bird of paradise have shown that it is strikingly common that the courtship areas of two males are each 45 to 90 meters apart. These courtship areas are in turn between 150 and 530 meters away from those of the next two males. Frith and Beehler describe this system of two nearby courtship areas, each with a greater distance from the courtship areas of the next two males, as a mixture between a single courtship area and the gathering of males at a lek , as is characteristic, for example, of the Stephanie paradise elster. This behavior is absent in the bare-headed bird of paradise and sickle-tailed bird of paradise. They each have individual courtship areas. What these two species have in common, however, is that, similar to many of the bower birds, the courtship area is cleared of disturbing plants and fallen leaves so that the ground is uncovered. Knotless tree saplings or almost vertically rising branches are central to the courtship area. Typical for courtship in all species is a bucking of the breast plumage, feather collars or a raising of the extended pair of control springs. Courtship can be rich in individual elements, the sequence of the individual elements has not yet been conclusively investigated for all species. The following sequence was observed for the King's Bird of Paradise:

  • Arch-shaped spreading of the wings (so-called "wing-cupping"). The head is tilted towards one of the wings. When viewed from the front, the curved edges facing the viewer almost form a semicircle with the head of the bird sitting on a branch tilted downwards to the side.
  • The wings are spread horizontally to the side, the underside of the wing faces the ground.
  • The male hangs with his feet on a branch, but the body is held almost horizontally upwards, the wings are spread and point with the underside of the wing upwards. The elongated pair of tail feathers points upwards, so that the rolled up ends are the only ones to be seen above the branch.
  • The male hangs upside down on the branch in a posture reminiscent of bats, the wings are ajar. The rolled up ends of the extended pair of control springs are the only ones to be seen above the branch.

Species and subspecies

Sickle-tailed bird of paradise
Bare-headed birds of paradise

The genus includes three types:

Hybrids with other birds of paradise

The tendency of birds of paradise to cross with other species in their family was already described by Anton Reichenow at the beginning of the 20th century and thus almost earlier than for any other bird family.

Natural hybrids are relatively common between the sickle-tailed bird of paradise and the king's birds of paradise. The French zoologist Jacques Berlioz described a hybrid between these two species of sickletail as early as 1927. By 2006, a total of 26 males were known that had emerged from such crosses. Females from such crosses look so similar to the female parent bird that it cannot be seen from their external appearance that they have parent birds of two different species. In addition, crossbreeds of the sickle-tailed bird of paradise with the collar bird of paradise were found. The three males that arose from a cross between these two species belonging to different genera were first scientifically described as Lamprothorax Wilhelmine . In contrast, there is only one bird hide in the scientific collections that suggests a cross between the sickle-tailed bird of paradise and the little bird of paradise .

Imprisonment

  • The bare-headed bird of paradise has already been kept in zoological gardens on various occasions. Parts of the courtship have been observed in both London Zoo and Chester Zoo . Offspring have not yet succeeded.
  • Sickle-tailed birds of paradise are occasionally shown in zoological gardens. The successful offspring came in 1984 in the Baiyer River Sanctuary , Papua New Guinea. There were also offspring in 1994 at the Honolulu Zoo, where the nestlings, however, have to be raised by hand.
  • King birds of paradise are shown comparatively frequently in zoological gardens in Europe, Asia and the United States. However, they are relatively seldom bred, although their breeding is not considered difficult.

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 .
  • Thane Pratt & Bruce M Behhler. (2015): Birds of New Guinea. Princeton University Press, Princeton & Oxford, 2nd Edition, ISBN 978-0-691-09563-9 .

Web links

Commons : Sickletails ( Cicinnurus )  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 390.
  2. ↑ Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 403.
  3. ↑ Handbook of the Birds of the World on the Naked Head Bird of Paradise , accessed on July 18, 2017
  4. ↑ Handbook of the Birds of the World on the King's Bird of Paradise , accessed on July 20, 2017
  5. ↑ Handbook of the Birds of the World on the sickle-tailed bird of paradise , accessed July 20, 2017
  6. ↑ Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 413.
  7. ↑ Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 415.
  8. ^ McCarthy: Handbook of Avian Hybrids of the World . P. 228.
  9. ↑ a b c McCarthy: Handbook of Avian Hybrids of the World . P. 229.
  10. ↑ Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 406.
  11. ↑ Frith & Beehler: The Birds of Paradise - Paradisaeidae . P. 417.