The black sicklebill (''Epimachus fastosus'') is a large member of the birds of paradise family,

Paradisaeidae The birds-of-paradise are members of the family Paradisaeidae of the order Passeriformes. The majority of species are found in eastern Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and eastern Australia. The family has 44 species in 17 genera. The members of this ...

. This species is found throughout most of central

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torr ...

and the Vogelkop region to the northwest in

montane forests Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is a crucial f ...

at altitudes from 1800 to 2150 m.

Etymology

The species' scientific name is ''Epimachus fastosus''. ''Epimachus,'' its generic name, means "equipped for battle", referring to this genus'

machine gun A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) ar ...

-sounding calls. Its specific name, ''fastosus'', means "proud". For its subspecies, ''atratus'' means "black", ''ultimus'' means "final" (probably referring to this subspecies as the last one discovered for this species), and ''stresemanni'' honors the German naturalist,

Erwin Stresemann Erwin Friedrich Theodor Stresemann (22 November 1889, in Dresden – 20 November 1972, in East Berlin) was a German naturalist and ornithologist. Stresemann was an ornithologist of extensive breadth who compiled one of the first and most compr ...

Description

As being the second longest bird of paradise species (behind the

Ribbon-tailed astrapia The ribbon-tailed astrapia, also known as Shaw Mayer's astrapia (''Astrapia mayeri''), is a species of bird-of-paradise. The ribbon-tailed astrapia is distributed and endemic to subalpine forests in western part of the central highlands of Papua ...

), the black sicklebill measures about 110 cm (around 43 inches) in length if the tail is included, and around 24 inches (63 cm) without the tail. The female is around 21 inches (55 cm) in length. The black sicklebill is a very bizarre species of bird of paradise. The male has a black head with a long, silver, slightly downcurved bill (not as downcurved as ''Drepanornis'' sicklebills), a bright yellow mouth, scarlet-red eyes which are surrounded by iridescent scaly feathers of typically blue-greenish color that cover most of the front of the face. The rest of the head, including the neck, is jet black. The back is jet black, but is mostly covered with iridescent scale-like feathers with metallic blue color, but can be concluded as greenish-blue in some lights. His wings are black with a less conspicuous bluish iridescence. The greatly exaggerated tail is jet black with a more visible blue iridescence, more notable at the center. On its underside, he has very soft, almost

silk Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from the ...

y brownish-black plumage that ends in relatively elongated flank plumes that extend slightly past the tail, but these plumes are more pronounced in the

Brown sicklebill The brown sicklebill (''Epimachus meyeri'') is a species of bird-of-paradise that is found in the mountain forests of New Guinea. Its appearance resembles the closely related and larger black sicklebill. In areas where these two large sicklebills ...

. Typically hidden when perched, the males' most splendid ornaments are two glorious pectoral fans on each side of the breast. These large feathers are almost entirely black, but an outstanding feature is that each feather is intricately tipped iridescent blue-greenish. These fans are used in their courtship displays when they bring them up over their head to form an overall

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ...

shape edged with a stroking narrow, blue line. The female, however, is generically unimpressive. She is an olive-light brown above with more of an orange-brown crown. She is creamy on the belly, which is covered with black barring. She still has a long tail, but not nearly as long as her male counterpart. She differs from the female brown sicklebill by her brown eyes vs. the white eyes of the latter species. The tail is a dull olive. Both sexes have grey-blackish legs and feet.

Call

Long-tailed Sicklebills have very un-birdly calls. The male of this species produces a powerful, far-carrying, bubbling "kwit-it kwit-it", a characteristic sound in its range. The true unusual call is found in the brown sicklebill (see that

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

). Listen to cal
here

Hybridisation

In the wild, the bird has hybridised with the

Arfak astrapia The Arfak astrapia (''Astrapia nigra'') is a species of astrapia, a group of birds found in the '' Paradiseidae'' family of the birds-of-paradise. In the wild, the bird has hybridised with the black sicklebill creating offspring that were once co ...

to create offspring that were once considered two distinct species, the Elliot's sicklebill ("''Epimachus ellioti"'') and the Astrapian sicklebill ("''Astrapimachus astrapioides"''). Both species are generally viewed by most mainstream ornithologists as hybrids, but a minority of ornithologists believe ''ellioti'' may be a valid species. There have also been records of hybrids with the

Long-tailed paradigalla The long-tailed paradigalla (''Paradigalla carunculata'') is a large, approximately 37 cm long, black bird-of-paradise with long and pointed tail. One of the most plain members in the family Paradisaeidae, its only adornment is the colorful f ...

(''Paradigalla carunculata),'' Superb Bird-of-paradise (''Lophorina superba)'' and perhaps the

crescent-caped lophorina The crescent-caped lophorina or Vogelkop superb bird-of-paradise (''Lophorina niedda''), sometimes noted as the curl-caped bird-of-paradise, is a species of the Paradisaeidae (bird-of-paradise) family. It is endemic to the Bird's Head Peninsula i ...

(''Lophorina niedda'').

Ecology and behaviour

Feeding

Black sicklebills, like many of their relatives, are primarily omnivorous, feeding on fruits, insects and other animal prey. Unlike most mostly

frugivorous A frugivore is an animal that thrives mostly on raw fruits or succulent fruit-like produce of plants such as roots, shoots, nuts and seeds. Approximately 20% of mammalian herbivores eat fruit. Frugivores are highly dependent on the abundance an ...

cousins, it tends to feed on both items at an equal proportion. It typically feeds solitarily, but mixed foraging flocks aren't abnormal.

Courtship and breeding

Male black sicklebills

display Display may refer to: Technology * Display device, output device for presenting information, including: ** Cathode ray tube, video display that provides a quality picture, but can be very heavy and deep ** Electronic visual display, output devi ...

anywhere from September to October and February to April. Like nearly all members in Paradisaeidae, they are polygnous, mating with several females in a single season. The male chooses a pole-like, upstanding

branch A branch, sometimes called a ramus in botany, is a woody structural member connected to the central trunk of a tree (or sometimes a shrub). Large branches are known as boughs and small branches are known as twigs. The term ''twig'' usually ...

for his display. He may practice for days on end; once he's ready to display, he advertises with his loud call to attract a female. When a female lands on his pole, he fluffs up his pectoral fans to make a comet shape, leaning and bending horizontally. After his intro, he rises upward and perpendicular to the ground and repeatedly rubs the rachides of his flight feathers together to make woodpecker-like beating sounds, all while slowly orbiting around the female's inquisitive face. Once she's been impressed, the two birds

copulate Sexual intercourse (or coitus or copulation) is a sexual activity typically involving the insertion and thrusting of the penis into the vagina for sexual pleasure or reproduction.Sexual intercourse most commonly means penile–vaginal penetr ...

. The female tend to all parental duties; she builds the nest, cares for the eggs and chicks. However, as custom with the family, very little is known about the actual breeding process of this species.

Subspecies and taxonomy

The Black sicklebill has been classified as ''Promerops fastuosus,'' and was first thought to be a species of sugarbird (from the family Promeropidae'')'' upon discovery; of course this was proved false and it now sits in the family Paradiseidae. The "long-tailed" sicklebills are actually not closely related to the " short-tailed" birds of the same genus, ''Drepanornis, ''; they in fact belong to a clade that includes the '' Paradigalla'' and ''

Astrapia ''Astrapia'' (Vieillot, 1816) is a genus of birds-of-paradise. The genus contains five species, all endemic to New Guinea. The males have highly iridescent plumage and remarkably long tails. Females are duller and have shorter tails. Barnes's ...

''. Of course, its closest relative is the

brown sicklebill The brown sicklebill (''Epimachus meyeri'') is a species of bird-of-paradise that is found in the mountain forests of New Guinea. Its appearance resembles the closely related and larger black sicklebill. In areas where these two large sicklebills ...

(''Epimachus meyeri).'' The black sicklebill has three subspecies: * ''Epimachus fastosus atratus-'' the disputed subspecies ''stresemanni'' is synonymized with ''atratus.'' *''Epimachus fastosus fastosus'' *''Epimachus fastosus ultimus''

Status and Conservation

With a population estimated around 2,000-10,000 individual birds, the habitat Due to ongoing

habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...

, small population size, and hunting in some areas for food and its tail feathers, the black sicklebill is declining in a relatively relevant portion of it distribution. It is classified as

Least Concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

on the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...

of Threatened Species, and is listed on Appendix II of

CITES CITES (shorter name for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention) is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals from the threats of interna ...

References

* Frith, C. & Frith, D. (2019). Black Sicklebill (''Epimachus fastosus''). In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). ''Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive''. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. (retrieved from https://www.hbw.com/node/60653 on 23 October 2019). * Database entry includes a range map and justification for why this species is vulnerable

External links

* ARKive
images of the Black Sicklebill ''(Epimachus fastuosus)''

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20040923021207/http://www.redlist.org/search/details.php?species=7840 IUCN Red List
Red Data Book
{{Taxonbar, from=Q606547

black sicklebill The black sicklebill (''Epimachus fastosus'') is a large member of the birds of paradise family, Paradisaeidae. This species is found throughout most of central New Guinea and the Vogelkop region to the northwest in montane forests at altitud ...

Birds of New Guinea