Tagula spectacle bird
| Tagula spectacle bird | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Zosterops meeki | ||||||||||||
| Hartert , 1898 |
The Tagula spectacled bird ( Zosterops meeki ) is a little-researched species of the spectacled bird family . It is endemic to Vanatinai Island (formerly called Tagula) in the Louisiade Archipelago . The art epithet honors the British bird and insect collector Albert Stewart Meek .
description
The Tagula spectacle bird reaches a length of 10.5 centimeters. The head is dark black to the middle of the parting, under the eyes and the ear covers. The top is olive green. The rump and upper tail-coverts are olive yellow. There is a large white eye ring and an indistinct yellow strip of the corner of the mouth. Underside and under wing-coverts are monochrome white with a slight brownish tinge. The belly and the underside of the tail are yellow. The beak is slate black. The feet are blue-gray and the iris is brown.
Habitat and way of life
The Tagula spectacled bird lives in lowland rainforests and forest edges at altitudes of up to 300 m on the island of Vanatinai. Little is known about his way of life.
status
The Tagula spectacled bird is difficult to spot due to its secret way of life. No specimen was observed during a ten-day expedition on Mount Riu in 1992. According to Thane K. Pratt and David K. Mitchell, spectacled birds could be heard on Vanatinai in 2004. In 2012, 2013 and 2014 ornithologist William Goulding was able to observe spectacled birds on Vanatinai. In 2014, the British entomologist John Tennent observed a single spectacled bird near Rambuso on the north coast of Vanatinai. In December 2016, David K. Mitchell and John Tennent managed to photograph the Tagula Spectacled Bird. Over half of the forest on Vanatinai has been degraded and cleared. Since nothing is known about its population status, it is classified by the IUCN in the category: insufficient data ( data deficient ).
literature
- TK Pratt, MP Moore, DK Mitchell, M. Viula: A Bird Survey of the Louisiade Islands, Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea October 24 to November 23, 2004 . Report to The National Geographic Society (Grant 7624-04) September 1, 2005.
- Otto Finsch : The animal kingdom. Delivery 15: Zosteropidae. Friedländer, Berlin 1901.
Web links
- Zosterops meeki inthe IUCN Red List of Endangered Species 2017.1. Listed by: BirdLife International, 2016. Retrieved June 19, 2017.