The palm cockatoo is found in rainforests and woodlands of New Guinea and Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, Australia. The palm cockatoos from the east have different call types from the ones from other areas, due to their long term isolation. In a population in the Iron Range, 30 different syllables were distinguished. These additional syllables are mainly produced by males and are often combined to form long, complex sequences. The vocalizations of palm cockatoos are similar to those of most wild parrots, but they have also been shown to produce a variety of additional syllables in display and exchange with neighbouring individuals. The race stenolophus also has narrower crest feathers. stenolophus are larger than the nominate subspecies. The palm cockatoo also has a distinctive red cheek patch that changes colour when the bird is alarmed or excited. The beak is unusual, as the lower and upper mandibles do not meet for much of its length, allowing the tongue to hold a nut against the top mandible while the lower mandible works to open it. The male has a larger beak than the female. This powerful bill enables palm cockatoos not only to eat very hard nuts and seeds, but also enables males to break off thick (about 1 in) sticks from live trees to use for a drumming display. It is a distinctive bird with a large crest and has one of the largest bills of any parrot (only the hyacinth macaw's is larger). It may be the largest cockatoo species and largest parrot in Australia, although large races of yellow-tailed black cockatoos and sulphur-crested cockatoos broadly overlap in size. macgillivrayi ( Mathews, 1912) – south New Guinea and north Cape York Peninsula, northeast Queensland (northeast Australia)Ī 2007 genetic study found little support for the above division into subspecies. aterrimus ( Gmelin, JF, 1788) – Aru Islands (southwest of New Guinea) goliath ( Kuhl, 1820) – Raja Ampat Islands (northwest of New Guinea), Bird's Head Peninsula (northwest New Guinea) and west, central, southeast New Guinea stenolophus ( van Oort, 1911) – Yapen ( Geelvink Bay islands, northwest New Guinea) and north, east New Guinea Confusingly, this name was also used by early naturalists and Brazilian natives to refer to the dark blue hyacinth macaw. It is also sometimes given the misnomer "black macaw" in aviculture – the macaws are unrelated New World parrots. The species was named the "Goliath Aratoo" in Wood's Natural History (1862). "Palm cockatoo" has been designated the official name by the International Ornithological Committee (IOC). Earlier limited genetic studies found it to be the earliest offshoot from the ancestors of what have become the cockatoo family. The palm cockatoo is a member of the white cockatoo subfamily Cacatuinae. The accepted type locality is the Aru Islands, rather than "northern Australia". The specific epithet aterrimus is Modern Latin meaning "very black". The genus name combines the Latin proboscis meaning "snout" with -ger meaning "carrying". The palm cockatoo is now the only species placed in the genus Probosciger that was introduced by Heinrich Kuhl in 1820. The original drawing by de Bere is in the collection of the Natural History Museum, London. Joan Gideon Loten had provided Edwards with a drawing of the bird by the Sri Lankan artist Pieter Cornelis de Bevere. Gmelin based his description on the "black cockatoo" that had been described and illustrated in 1764 by the English naturalist George Edwards. He placed it with the parrots in the genus Psittacus and coined the binomial name Psittacus aterrimus. The palm cockatoo was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. It has a very large black beak and prominent red cheek patches. The palm cockatoo ( Probosciger aterrimus), also known as the goliath cockatoo or great black cockatoo, is a large smoky-grey or black parrot of the cockatoo family native to New Guinea, Aru Islands, and Cape York Peninsula. Australian palm cockatoo range (in green)
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |