Tooth-billed bowerbird

Tooth-billed bowerbird
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Ptilonorhynchidae
Genus: Scenopoeetes
Coues, 1891
Species: S. dentirostris
Binomial name
Scenopoeetes dentirostris
(Ramsay, 1876)

The tooth-billed bowerbird (Scenopoeetes dentirostris) also known as stagemaker bowerbird and tooth-billed catbird is a medium-sized, approximately 27 centimetres (11 in) long, stocky olive-brown bowerbird with brown-streaked buffish-white below, a grey feet, brown iris and unique tooth-like bill.[2][3][4] Both sexes are similar, however the female is slightly smaller than the male. It is the only member in monotypic genus Scenopoeetes.

The display-court

An Australian endemic, the tooth-billed bowerbird is distributed to mountain forests of northeast Queensland.[5] Its diet consists mainly of fruits and young leaves of forest trees.

The male is polygamous and builds a display-court or "stage-type bower", decorated with fresh green leaves laid with pale underside uppermost.[6] The leaves are collected by the male by chewing through the leaf stalk and old leaves are removed from the display-court. The display-court consists of a cleared area containing at least one tree trunk used by the male for perching. Upon the approach of a female the male drops to the ground and displays.

A common species in its limited habitat range, the tooth-billed bowerbird is evaluated as least concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.[1]

Mimicking Spangled Drongo, Lake Barrine N.Queensland, Australia

Notes

  1. 1 2 BirdLife International (2012). "Scenopoeetes dentirostris". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.2. International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved 26 November 2013.
  2. "Scenopoeetes dentirostris". Australian Antarctic Data Centre. Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Community. Retrieved 28 June 2012.
  3. Marshall, Jock (1954). Bower-birds, their displays and breeding cycles : a preliminary statement. Clarendon Press. p. 154.
  4. Hutchinson, G. Evelyn (1970). The itinerant ivory tower; scientific and literary essays. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press. pp. 56–59. ISBN 083691712X.
  5. "Tooth-billed Bowerbird (Scenopoeetes dentirostris)". BirdLife International. Retrieved 28 June 2012.
  6. Rowland, Peter (2008). Bowerbirds. Collingwood, Vic.: CSIRO Pub. p. 22. ISBN 9780643094208.

References

External links

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