Kingdom Animalia Order Passeriformes Genus Astrapia Higher classification Astrapia | Phylum Chordata Family Paradisaeidae Scientific name Astrapia mayeri Rank Species | |
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Similar Astrapia, Bird‑of‑paradise, Princess Stephanie's astrapia, Bird, King of Saxony bird‑of‑paradise | ||
Ribbon tailed astrapia
The ribbon-tailed astrapia, also known as Shaw Mayer's astrapia (Astrapia mayeri), is a species of bird-of-paradise.
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The ribbon-tailed astrapia is distributed and endemic to subalpine forests in western part of the central highlands of Papua New Guinea. Like many other ornamental birds-of-paradise, the male is polygamous. The ribbon-tailed astrapia is the most recently discovered bird-of-paradise.
Due to habitat lost and hunted for its plumes, the ribbon-tailed astrapia is listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. It is listed on Appendix II of CITES.
The scientific name commemorates the great naturalist and New Guinea explorer Fred Shaw Mayer, who was believed to have discovered the bird in 1938. However, it is now believed that explorer Jack Hides discovered the bird, while Mayer became interested in it later.
Ribbon tailed astrapia the three foot tail
Description
The ribbon-tailed astrapia is medium-sized, up to 32 cm long (without including the tail of the male, which can be over 1 metre). The body is velvet black. The male has an iridescent olive green and bronze plumage, and is adorned with ornamental "ball" plume above its bill and two extremely long, ribbon-like white tail feathers. The female is a brown bird with an iridescent head. Hybrids between this species and the Stephanie's astrapia, in the small area where their ranges overlap, have been named Barnes' astrapia.
One of the most spectacular birds-of-paradise, the male ribbon-tailed astrapia has the longest tail feathers in relation to body size of any bird, over three times the length of its body.