Woodhouse ant picker
| Woodhouse ant picker | ||||||||||||
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Woodhouse ant picker ( Parmoptila woodhousei ) in youth dress |
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| Parmoptila woodhousei | ||||||||||||
| Cassin , 1859 |
The woodhouse ant picker ( Parmoptila woodhousei ) is a species of bird from the finch family . It is native from eastern West Africa to central Africa. In addition to the nominate form , the subspecies Parmoptila woodhousei ansorgei Hartert, 1904, from Northern Angola was described.
description
The Woodhouse ant picker reaches a body length of eleven centimeters. The male has very small brown feathers on the top of the head, which freshly after moulting have red, otherwise pale brown tips. The reins of the eyes are blackish. The top of the body is olive brown with slightly lighter shaft lines. The wing top feathers are lined with reddish brown. The underside of the body is whitish with dense olive-gray spots up to the under tail-covers. The eyes are red-brown, the beak is black, and the feet are flesh-colored. Females have a plumage similar to the males, but they lack the red tips of the forehead feathers.
It can only be confused with the Jameson ant picker . The males of the ant picker differ from those of the Jameson ant picker by their speckled underside of the body, and there is also no red spot on the forehead. The females also have a spotted and not striped underside of the body. They also lack spots on the throat.
distribution and habitat
Woodhouse ant pickers occur in West Africa with two subspecies . The type locality is the Camma River in Gabon . The distribution area of the subspecies Parmoptila woodhousei woodhousei extends from southeast Nigeria to the southwest of the Central African Republic and to the west of the Republic of the Congo . The subspecies Parmoptila woodhousei ansorgei occurs exclusively in the north-west of Angola .
Woodhouse ant pickers mainly inhabit lowland forests, dense and older secondary forests, swamp forests, and gallery forests. They are primarily in the undergrowth. On the islands of Ivindo there are between seven and eight breeding pairs per square kilometer.
Way of life
Woodhouse ant pickers occur individually, in pairs, or in small family groups. They are often associated with other insectivorous bird species. Basically, the ant picker is a shy and inconspicuous bird.
The main food of the Woodhouse ant-pickers are tree-living ants. The Woodhouse ant pickers systematically search branches, leaves and bark for insects. They also break up ant nests.
The nests are eight inches high and twelve inches wide clusters of grass and leaves. The entrance is on the nesting side. The inside of the nest is lined with plant fibers. The clutch consists of three to four white-shelled eggs. The breeding season varies depending on the distribution area. In Nigeria, woodhouse ant pickers breed from March to May, in Gabon all year round and in Angola in April.
attitude
In contrast to the vast majority of the fine finch species, the Woodhouse ant picker is rarely kept in human care. As a nutrition specialist, he has special requirements that make keeping it very difficult. Apparently, Woodhouse ant-pickers depend on living ants for food all year round.
Subspecies
Two subspecies are described, which differ in their coloring and their area of distribution:
- Parmoptila woodhousei woodhousei Cassin, 1859
- Parmoptila woodhousei ansorgei Hartert, E , 1904
supporting documents
literature
- C. Hilary Fry , Stuart Keith (Eds.): The Birds of Africa. Volume 7, Christopher Helm, London 2004, ISBN 0-7136-6531-9 .
- Jürgen Nicolai (Ed.), Joachim Steinbacher (Ed.), Renate van den Elzen, Gerhard Hofmann, Claudia Mettke-Hofmann: Prachtfinken - Afrika. Series Handbuch der Vogelpflege, Eugen Ulmer Verlag, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-8001-4964-3 .
Web links
- Ant picker on AVIBASE
- BirdLife factsheet on the Woodhouse ant picker
- Parmoptila woodhousei inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Threatened Species . Listed by: BirdLife International, 2012. Retrieved September 24, 2013.