All printables
Long-tailed Widowbird — printable fact sheet
Free to print or save as PDF. Great for classrooms, homeschooling, and young explorers.
Creature Atlas
Animal Fact Sheet
Name: ____________________
Date: ____________________
Long-tailed Widowbird
Euplectes progne
Euplectes progne is a black African grassland bird about the size of a sparrow with a tail that, in the breeding male, reaches 50 cm or more - up to half a metre of streaming feathers on a 20 cm body, so long that in wet weather a male can barely fly. He displays by flying slowl…
Did you know?
- A male's tail can be up to three times the length of its body during the breeding season, making it one of the longest tail-to-body ratios of any bird.
- Andersson's tail-swapping experiment is reproduced in almost every undergraduate biology textbook and is the reason the long-tailed widowbird appears far more often in classrooms than in birdwatchers' notebooks. A male holds a large grassland territory and may attract several females, each of which builds her own nest and raises the young alone. The enormous tail is grown fresh each breeding season and shed afterwards, so the bird carries the cost only when it pays.
What I learned
Draw the long-tailed widowbird
© Creature Atlas · www.creatureatlas.com · Free for classroom & personal use
Want the whole set?
Get printable fact-sheet packs, coloring pages, and classroom worksheet bundles for dozens of animals — ready to download and print.
Browse printable packsGet a free printable each week
Join the newsletter for a new Creature of the Week + printables.