Thursday 26 April 2018

I First Remember Seeing This Bird Of Paradise,

in one of David Attenborough's wildlife programs,


but it was not this one, which is newly discovered, this is the some times sinister looking Vogelkop Superb Bird-of-Paradise, 

this is the comparison between the closely related superb bird-of-paradise and the Vogelkop Superb Bird-of-Paradise, on the left above is the widespread superb bird-of-paradise, with its famous black smiley face mating display, on the right is the newly identified Vogelkop superb bird-of-paradise, which looks more like a frown face,

these GIFs are from a  video from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology  which documents the spectacular plumage and mating dance of the Vogelkop Superb Bird-of-Paradise, in order to catch the attention of its female counterpart,

 the male Bird-of-Paradise flips its cape of black feathers into a large ruff that surrounds its head, while also fanning out an iridescent azure blue skirt of feathers from its breast, for years, people mistook the Vogelkop superb bird-of-paradise for the wider spread and closely related superb bird-of-paradise, "After you see what the Vogelkop form looks like and acts like in the wild, there's little room for doubt that it is a separate species," says Ed Scholes, evolutionary biologist with the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology's Birds-of-Paradise Project, "The courtship dance is different. The vocalizations are different. The females look different, even the shape of the displaying male is different."

and here is the video, in a paper published by Timothy G. Laman and Edwin Scholes, this Indonesian bird was recently confirmed as a separate species based on its courtship behavior, You can learn more about the Vogelkop Superb Bird-of-Paradise in another video from Cornell and watch more videos about all things avian on the Lab’s YouTube channel, what an amazing bird and courtship display.


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