Animalia Life

Paradigalla brevicauda
SUBFAMILY
Paradisaeinae
TAXONOMY
Paradigalla brevicauda Rothschild and Hartert, 1911, Mount Goliath, central Dutch New Guinea.
OTHER COMMON NAMES
English: Short-tailed wattled bird of paradise; French: Paradisier а queue courte; German: Langschwanz-Paradigalla; Spanish: Paradigalla de Cola Corta.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
9.0 in (23 cm); female 0.4–0.38 (155–170 g), male 0.35–0.41 lb (160–184 g). Head, upperparts, and underparts a velvety black. Yellowish green crown to nape and small, light blue wattle at the mandible base. Conspicuous bright yellow foreface. Blackish bill and legs.
DISTRIBUTION
Western and central ranges of New Guinea mainland from the Weyland Mountains eastward to the Bismark Range at altitudes of 4,590–8,460 ft (1,400–2,580 m). May be on the Kratke Range, Papua New Guinea, but unrecorded to date.
HABITAT
Midmontane forests, including beech, forest/garden edges, secondary growth.
BEHAVIOR
Birds give a rising bell-like zheee call at about 490 ft (150 m) intervals in moss forest, suggestive of dispersed solitary males advertising from song posts. In flight, wings make an audible rattling or rustling.
FEEDING ECOLOGY AND DIET
Omnivorous, predominantly frugivorous, but little known. Birds acrobatically cling to tree boughs and trunks to tear and probe into epiphytic plant growth for invertebrates and small vertebrates. Nestlings fed a large proportion (65%) of animals, including earthworms, insect larvae, crickets, beetles, mantids, katydids, spiders, frogs, and skinks.
REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY
Polygynous, with presumed promiscuous males and exclusively female nest attendance. Breeding on the Tari Valley slopes recorded in all months except March and November. Nest is a substantial, deep, open cup and the clutch is one egg. Incubation lasts more than 19 days and a known nestling period was 25 days.
CONSERVATION STATUS
Not threatened.
SIGNIFICANCE TO HUMANS
None known.

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