Superb Bird of Paradise
Encyclopedia
The Superb Bird-of-paradise (Lophorina superba) is a small, approximately 26 cm long, passerine
bird of the Paradisaeidae (Birds of Paradise) family. It is the only member in the genus Lophorina. The male is black with an iridescent green crown, blue-green breast shield and a long velvety black erectile cape covering his back. The female is a reddish-brown bird with brownish barred buff below. The young is similar to the female.
The Superb Bird-of-paradise is distributed throughout rainforests of New Guinea
.
shield springs upward and spreads widely and symmetrically around its head, instantly transforming the frontal view of the bird into a spectacular ellipse
-shaped creature that rhythmically snaps its tail feathers against the ground while hopping in frantic circles around the female. While this display is in effect, the blue plumage is in a pattern similar to a cartoon face. Even despite the elaborate display, the average female rejects 15-20 potential suitors before consenting to mate.
Although heavily hunted for its plumes, the Superb Bird-of-paradise is one of the most common and widespread birds of paradise in New Guinea forests. The Superb Bird-of-paradise is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List
of Threatened Species. It is listed on Appendix II of CITES.
Passerine
A passerine is a bird of the order Passeriformes, which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds or, less accurately, as songbirds, the passerines form one of the most diverse terrestrial vertebrate orders: with over 5,000 identified species, it has roughly...
bird of the Paradisaeidae (Birds of Paradise) family. It is the only member in the genus Lophorina. The male is black with an iridescent green crown, blue-green breast shield and a long velvety black erectile cape covering his back. The female is a reddish-brown bird with brownish barred buff below. The young is similar to the female.
The Superb Bird-of-paradise is distributed throughout rainforests of New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
.
Courtship display
The species has an unusually low population of females, and competition amongst males for mates is intensely fierce. This has led the species to have one of the most bizarre and elaborate courtship displays in the avian world. After carefully and meticulously preparing a "dance floor" (even scrubbing the dirt or branch smooth with leaves), the male first attracts a female with a loud call. After the curious female approaches, his folded black feather cape and blue-green breastBreast
The breast is the upper ventral region of the torso of a primate, in left and right sides, which in a female contains the mammary gland that secretes milk used to feed infants.Both men and women develop breasts from the same embryological tissues...
shield springs upward and spreads widely and symmetrically around its head, instantly transforming the frontal view of the bird into a spectacular ellipse
Ellipse
In geometry, an ellipse is a plane curve that results from the intersection of a cone by a plane in a way that produces a closed curve. Circles are special cases of ellipses, obtained when the cutting plane is orthogonal to the cone's axis...
-shaped creature that rhythmically snaps its tail feathers against the ground while hopping in frantic circles around the female. While this display is in effect, the blue plumage is in a pattern similar to a cartoon face. Even despite the elaborate display, the average female rejects 15-20 potential suitors before consenting to mate.
Although heavily hunted for its plumes, the Superb Bird-of-paradise is one of the most common and widespread birds of paradise in New Guinea forests. The Superb Bird-of-paradise is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List
IUCN Red List
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species , founded in 1963, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature is the world's main authority on the conservation status of species...
of Threatened Species. It is listed on Appendix II of CITES.