Animalia Life

Meliphaga aruensis
TAXONOMY
Meliphaga auriculata Salvadori, 1881, Utanata River, New Guinea.
OTHER COMMON NAMES
English: Puff-backed honeyeater; French: Mйliphage bouffant; German: Aruhonigfresser; Spanish: Melнfago de Lomo Inflado.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
6.7 in (17 cm); 1.1 oz (30 g). Olive-green upperparts with narrow yellowish rictal spot on sides of head; blackish lores; and gray underparts washed yellow, darker on flanks. Feet dull gray, bill blackish brown.
DISTRIBUTION
New Guinea from sea level to 4,000 ft (1,200 m), Aru, Yapen, West Papuan, D’Entrecasteaux, and Trobriand Islands.
HABITAT
Lowland rainforest, especially in dense regrowth after disturbance in both secondary and primary forest.
BEHAVIOR
Shy, usually hidden and very hard to identify from several similar meliphagas with which they may occur. Voice is a rapid series of mellow staccato notes.
FEEDING ECOLOGY AND DIET
Take fruit, nectar, and insects by gleaning in the understory and lower canopy.
REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY
Breeding recorded March through April and August through December. The cup-shaped nest of dead leaves and bark is suspended in shrub or sapling. Female incubates one or two eggs, and both adults feed young.
CONSERVATION STATUS
Not threatened.
SIGNIFICANCE TO HUMANS
None known.

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