The brown sicklebill (''Epimachus meyeri'') is a species of

bird-of-paradise 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 ...

that is found in the mountain forests of

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 ...

. Its appearance resembles the closely related and larger

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 ...

. In areas where these two large sicklebills met, the brown sicklebill replaced the latter species in higher altitudes. Its diet consists mainly of fruits, arthropods and small animals. The male has a staccato, burst-like call which resembles a burst of automatic gunfire. The brown sicklebill is evaluated as Least Concern 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. It 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 ...

Taxonomy

A female specimen of the brown sicklebill was collected in New Guinea by the German collector Carl Hunstein in 1884. This specimen was formally described in 1886 by the German naturalists

Otto Finsch Friedrich Hermann Otto Finsch (8 August 1839, Warmbrunn – 31 January 1917, Braunschweig) was a German ethnographer, naturalist and colonial explorer. He is known for a two-volume monograph on the parrots of the world which earned him a doctorate ...

and Adolf Bernhard Meyer under the current binomial name ''Epimachus meyeri''. The genus name is from the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

επιμαχος (''epimakhos'') meaning "equipped for battle" (from ''makhomai'' meaning "to fight"). The specific epithet ''meyeri'' is named after Meyer, one of the authors of the description. Although several subspecies have been described, these are no longer recognised and the brown sicklebill is considered to be

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispe ...

Description

The brown sicklebill is large, up to 96 cm long, dark blue and green with highly iridescent plumages, a sickle-shaped bill, pale blue

iris Iris most often refers to: *Iris (anatomy), part of the eye *Iris (mythology), a Greek goddess * ''Iris'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants * Iris (color), an ambiguous color term Iris or IRIS may also refer to: Arts and media Fictional ent ...

and brown underparts. The male is adorned with ornamental plumes on the sides of its rear and a huge

sabre A sabre ( French: �sabʁ or saber in American English) is a type of backsword with a curved blade associated with the light cavalry of the early modern and Napoleonic periods. Originally associated with Central European cavalry such as th ...

-shaped central tail feathers that are highly prized by natives. The female is a reddish-brown bird with buff barred black below.

Gallery

Epimachus meyeri -Papua New Guinea-8.jpg, Female Epimachus meyeri -Papua New Guinea -male-8.jpg, Male

References

External links

BirdLife Species Factsheet

Song Brown Sicklebill
brown sicklebill Birds of New Guinea brown sicklebill brown sicklebill {{Paradisaeidae-stub