Animalia Life

Rollandia microptera
TAXONOMY
Podiceps micropterus, Gould, 1868, Lake Titicaca.
OTHER COMMON NAMES
English: Short-winged grebe, flightless grebe; French: Grиbe microptиre; German: Titikakataucher; Spanish: Zampullнn de Titicaca.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
15.3–17.7 in (39–45 cm); 1.4 lb (635 g). Adult breeding: Above blackish brown, shaggy crown chestnut with greenish-black streaks, lower cheeks white with black streaks, throat and foreneck white, breast and thin line on sides of neck rufous, belly mottled drab, rufous and gray, flanks with most rufous. Secondaries mostly white with black shaft streak. Bill dark suffused with yellow, eye-ring yellow, eyes dark. Nonbreeding birds with more or less whitish central underparts, immatures considerably paler both above and below.
DISTRIBUTION
Endemic to Lake Titicaca and adjacent Lake Uru-Uru at 12,100–12,600 ft (3,700–3,800 m) in southeast Peru and west Bolivia.
HABITAT
Breeds among patches of bulrush (Scirpus totora) or floating waterweeds, always with easy access to open water.
BEHAVIOR
Usually alone. Flees to open water rather than seeking cover in the vegetation.
FEEDING ECOLOGY AND DIET
Feeds nearly entirely on large fish caught in relatively open and deep water. Sometimes peers from surface.
REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY
Courtship elaborate, usually beginning with assembly of several birds. Breeds throughout year. Lays 2 eggs several times a year, sometimes using the same nest. Large young sometimes help feed chicks from later broods. Incubation period unknown.
CONSERVATION STATUS
Population size unknown. Estimated to between 2,000 and 10,000 birds in the 1980s, but has declined dramatically in recent years, probably mostly owing to increased use of fishing nets with fine mesh, but local eutrophication and the introduction of trout and silverside (Odonthestes bonariensis), which has caused disappearance of many native fish, may also have played a role. Classified as Near Threatened but situation possibly critical.
SIGNIFICANCE TO HUMANS
None known.

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