Toothed arborvitae
| Toothed arborvitae | ||||||||||||
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Toothed Arborebird, Queensland |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Scenopoeetes | ||||||||||||
| Coues , 1891 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||||
| Scenopoeetes dentirostris | ||||||||||||
| ( EP Ramsay , 1876) |
The goblet bird ( Scenopoeetes dentirostris , syn .: Ailuroedus dentirostris ) is a species from the family of bower birds (Ptilonorhynchidae) and is a representative of the avifauna of Australia . Compared to the closely related gardener birds found in New Guinea, this type of bower bird has been well researched due to its distribution area in Australia.
With a body length of up to 27 centimeters, the toothed arborebird is one of the larger representatives in the bowerbird family and is roughly the size of a thrush. He is one of the species whose courtship behavior includes the construction of a threshing floor by the male. No subspecies are distinguished for this species.
Teeth arborebirds are very long-lived and take several years to reach sexual maturity. According to the IUCN, their stock situation is classified as safe ( least concern ).
features
The tooth bower bird reaches a body length of up to 27 centimeters, of which 9.6 to 10.7 centimeters are on the tail. The beak has a length of 2.8 to 3.3 centimeters. Adult males weigh between 132 and 199 grams, while females weigh between 157 and 182 grams. There is no noticeable gender dimorphism .
male
The goblet bird is built very compact overall, due to its dark plumage without any other markings it can hardly be made out in its habitat. The head and top of the body are dark olive-brown. He has a narrow ring of cinnamon-brown feathers around his eyes. The ear covers are very finely dashed due to the slightly lighter feathers. The throat is isabel and dashed gray and cinnamon brown. The rest of the underside of the body has a similar basic color, but is dashed in dark olive-brown. In contrast to the rest of the underside of the body, the under tail-coverts are finely banded across. The beak is dark brown to blackish with a slightly lighter beak tip and lightened beak sheaths. The inside of the beak is blackish to black with a strikingly contrasting white spot at the end of the upper beak. The feet and legs are olive-brown, whereby the color intensity varies individually. The iris is dark brown to almost black brown.
Females and young birds
The female of the same size resembles the male. In contrast to the male, however, the inside of the beak is not black, but yellowish to pink. Subadult males resemble females, but their beak interior gradually changes color to the black of adult males. Young birds are slightly smaller than the adult birds, their beak interior is still pale.
voice
Toothed arborebirds, like most bowerbirds, have a very large repertoire of voices and are also able to imitate a number of bird calls in their environment. In addition to at least 44 different species of birds, they also imitate the sounds of fruit bats , frogs and cicadas.
The gray-backed thick-headed bird ( Colluricincla boweri ) is one of the most frequently imitated bird species , followed by the king parakeet . Other frequently imitated bird calls are part of the fantail Cuckoo ( Cacomantis flabelliformis ), White-throated Treecreeper ( Cormobates leucophaeus ) Farnhuscher ( Oreoscopus gutturalis ), Yellow-throated Sericornis ( Sericornis citreogularis ) Fahl forehead Sericornis ( Sericornis magnirostris ) Grauwangengerygone ( Gerygone mouki ), Mountain Dornschnabel ( Acanthiza katherina ), stained beak-Honigfresser ( Lichenostomus frenatus ) Fahlgesichtschnäpper ( Tregellasia capito ) Graukopf-Farnschnäpper ( Heteromyias albispecularis ) Schwarzkopfflöter ( Orthonyx spaldingii ), Black Schopf-Wippflöter ( Psophodes olivaceus ), large-Dickkopfschnäpper ( Pachycephala pectoralis ), mask Monarch , spectacle monarch , fox fan tail , gray fan tail , striped caterpillar catcher and column gardener . Which bird calls are most often imitated can vary from year to year. When fan-tailed cuckoos were heard particularly frequently in the Paluma Range , they were imitated by all eight goblet birds observed. In the following year there were only very few of these cuckoos in the region and the imitation of the calls by the males of the toothed arborebird were correspondingly rarer.
Toothed bower birds typically imitate several calls from the vocal repertoire of a certain bird species - for example the alarm calls as well as the Baligesang. They often react opportunistically and react, for example, to groups of pennant parakeets or yellow-crested cockatoos flying past by imitating their calls. Often they also call alternately with the imitated bird species, that is, they answer the calls of the ferncatcher, for example, which in turn responds to their calls. Neighboring males also follow each other's calls and also imitate their bird's voice imitation.
distribution and habitat
The toothed arborebird occurs only in a very small distribution area in northeast Queensland on the east coast of Australia. He settles here in mountain rainforests in a region that mainly belongs to the Atherton Tablelands . The southern limit of distribution is something at the level of the city of Townsville . The altitude distribution ranges from 600 to 900 meters above sea level, but a toothed arbor bird has also been observed at 1221 meters above sea level on Mount Elliot. During the very dry winter months they also occur occasionally at lower altitudes. For example, an individual was observed in 2002 in the lowlands around the city of Cairns .
The habitat are mountain rainforests. It is also found near Lake Barrine and Lake Eacham in remaining forest remains surrounded by pastures. As long as they are not too far away from larger forests, it also settles only a few hectares of forest.
Individual goblet birds also seek fruit-bearing trees when they are isolated on pasture and are no more than 100 meters away from the edge of the forest. They can also be seen on citrus fruit and avocado plantations in winter when they are adjacent to forest areas. Males generally do not move further than 400 meters from their threshing floor. They usually do this in the middle of the day and then go to watering holes or forage for food.
Food and diet
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The toothed arbor bird feeds mainly on fruits, young leaves and buds and, to a lesser extent, on insects and their larvae. Individual studies have come to slightly different results as to what proportion of fruits in the food spectrum cover. In toothed arbors that were directly observed, fruit was eaten in 82 percent of the food intake. Investigations of their feces, however, showed a proportion of 92 percent of fruits. However, the result can be distorted because digested insects and eaten leaves could no longer be clearly identified in the fecal samples.
fruit
Stone fruits , berries and figs play a particularly important role . At least 96 species from 36 plant families are eaten. The majority of the fruits eaten have a yellow-orange color, followed by reddish-pink, then black-violet, blue-green and creamy white. The fruits are usually plucked directly from the branches and swallowed whole. Only larger fruits are cut up or eaten on the spot with the beak. Since they also excrete plant seeds with their droppings, they play a role in their distribution for some plants. It is estimated that the number of plants that benefit so much from ginger birds that they will eat them is at least fifty.
Leaves, flowers and insects
Toothed bower birds eat not only fruits, but also leaves relatively often, as well as flowers and plant stems. Eating leaves is particularly important in the winter months when they have less fruit available. Due to the serrated beak sheaths, they are able to chew leaves. Birds that eat leaves typically sit quietly on a branch with little movement and bite or tear off individual leaf parts, buds or parts of plant stems. Larger parts of the leaf are processed with the beak until they can be salivated and swallowed.
According to studies in the Paluma Range, insects only make up a very small proportion. They eat cockroaches, termites, beetles, caterpillars and other insect larvae, as well as spiders and earwigs. In the literature you can occasionally read that they also eat snails - in the opinion of Clifford and Dawn Frith this is incorrect and is due to the fact that Lärmpittas occasionally smash their forges on which they smash snails before they eat, near the barnings of the gnarled bird to have.
Socialization while searching for food
Toothed bower birds tolerate other species of birds in the trees, in whose crown they look for food. They can often be seen together with black-eared bowerbirds , silky bowerbirds and column gardeners . They are also regularly with mask dwarf parrots , pink breast macropygia , long-tailed fruit pigeons , superb fruit doves , stripes tracked catcher ( Coracina lineata ) and Victoria Birds of Paradise socialized. On the other hand, there is occasional aggressive behavior between conspecifics.
Reproduction
The males of the gnarled bird are polygynous , which means that they mate with several females in the breeding season , which lasts from October to March . The female builds the nest alone, incubates the clutch on her own and raises the young birds on her own. The males woo the females by building arbors, which, like the Ailuroedus species, belong to the “threshing floor” type. As with other species of bowerbird, this arbor is adorned with decorative objects. Males typically start cleaning the threshing floor between August and September. However, in years when they have a particularly abundant supply of fruit, this courtship behavior can also start in July. The peak of the courtship falls in the period October to December.
Females engaged in nest building or breeding occur from September to January. The peak of the breeding season is November to December. The females usually build their nests in the dense tendrils of climbing plants that either surround a tree trunk or descend from a tree branch. Most of the nests have so far been found in climbing plants on Australian chestnuts or trees of the genus Argyrodendron . The nests are on average 15 meters above the ground. The nest stands on a loose platform that the female builds from twigs and occasionally from the stems of orchids. The actual nest is a bowl nest. Its structure is more similar to that of the gray bower than to the closely related species of the cat bird genus .
The clutch usually consists of two eggs, more rarely one egg. The eggs are isabel-colored with no further color markings. So far nothing is known about the breeding and nestling times. The female carries the food in her beak. The nestlings are fed fruits and insects. Beetles appear to play a bigger role in nestling nutrition.
Age
Teeth arborebirds are very long-lived. Based on ringing data and the presumed age at the time of ringing, it is known that goblet birds can live to be at least 24 years old: The conclusion is based on a male who was ringed in 1978 and already owned a traditional threshing floor at that time, which is why he was at least at the time of the condition must have been four years old. It was caught again in 1998 and was therefore at least 24 years old. Recatches of other males that were first ringed by adult birds confirm that individual males have occupied a threshing floor for more than a decade.
Teeth arboreand people
The toothed arborist has never been kept in captivity until at least 2004.
The leaders of the natural scientist Carl Sophus Lumholtz (1851–1922), who belonged to the indigenous peoples of the region, referred to him as gramma or thief because “they steal the leaves they play with”. Clifford and Dawn Frith conclude from this that the indigenous peoples of this region were very well aware that the males steal each other's decorative objects from their arbors.
literature
- Jennifer Ackerman: The Genius of Birds . Corsair, London 2016, ISBN 978-1-59420-521-7 .
- 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 .
- Jared Diamond: The third chimpanzee . S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-596-17215-2 .
- Clifford B. Frith, Dawn. W. Frith: The Bowerbirds - Ptilonorhynchidae . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-854844-3 .
- Mike Hansell: Bird nests and construction behavior , illustrated by Raith Overhill, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-01764-5 .
- Laura Kelly, John Endler: Illusions Promote Mating Success at Great Bowerbirds. In: Science Magazine . January 20, 2012, pp. 335-338.
- Peter Rowlalnd: Bowerbirds . Csiro Publishing, Collingwood 2008, ISBN 978-0-643-09420-8 .
Web links
- Zahnlaubenvogel at Avibase
- English website
- Mangoverde: pictures and voice examples
- Scenopoeetes dentirostris inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Threatened Species . Listed by: BirdLife International, 2012. Retrieved December 24, 2013.
Single receipts
- ↑ a b c Handbook of the Birds of the World zum Zahnlaubenvogel , accessed April 20, 2017
- ↑ Frith: The Bowerbirds - Ptilonorhynchidae . P. 265.
- ↑ a b c d e Frith: The Bowerbirds - Ptilonorhynchidae . P. 259.
- ↑ a b c d e Frith: The Bowerbirds - Ptilonorhynchidae . P. 258.
- ↑ Frith: The Bowerbirds - Ptilonorhynchidae . P. 257.
- ↑ Frith: The Bowerbirds - Ptilonorhynchidae . P. 262.
- ↑ a b c d Frith: The Bowerbirds - Ptilonorhynchidae . P. 263.
- ↑ a b c Frith: The Bowerbirds - Ptilonorhynchidae . P. 260.
- ↑ a b Frith: The Bowerbirds - Ptilonorhynchidae . P. 261.
- ↑ a b Frith: The Bowerbirds - Ptilonorhynchidae . P. 264.
- ↑ a b c d Frith: The Bowerbirds - Ptilonorhynchidae . P. 273.
- ↑ Frith: The Bowerbirds - Ptilonorhynchidae . P. 271.
- ↑ Frith: The Bowerbirds - Ptilonorhynchidae . P. 274.