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Greater Bird-of-paradise — printable fact sheet
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Greater Bird-of-paradise
Paradisaea apoda
Paradisaea apoda takes its species name - "footless" - from a trade fabrication: the skins sold to Europeans from the sixteenth century onward had the legs and wings cut away by Aru islanders preparing them for export, and European naturalists concluded that the birds had no fee…
Did you know?
- Despite their showy plumage and displays, Greater Birds-of-paradise are sometimes heard more often than seen, as their calls echo through dense rainforest canopies.
- Wallace brought two live greater birds-of-paradise back to London in 1862, the first ever seen alive in Europe, feeding them on cockroaches caught aboard ship. A small feral population introduced to Little Tobago in 1909 as an insurance colony persisted for decades before dying out after a hurricane. Male plumage takes up to seven years to reach full adult form, so a lek is layered with sub-adult males in mixed states of plumage waiting their turn.
What I learned
Draw the greater bird-of-paradise
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