The standardwing bird-of-paradise (''Semioptera wallacii'') also known as Wallace's standardwing or as the standardwing 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 thi ...

. It is the only member in

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 "unispec ...

genus ''Semioptera''.

Etymology

George Robert Gray George Robert Gray FRS (8 July 1808 – 6 May 1872) was an English zoologist and author, and head of the ornithological section of the British Museum, now the Natural History Museum, in London for forty-one years. He was the younger brother o ...

of the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

named this species in honour of

Alfred Russel Wallace Alfred Russel Wallace (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural se ...

, British naturalist and author of ''

The Malay Archipelago ''The Malay Archipelago'' is a book by the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace which chronicles his scientific exploration, during the eight-year period 1854 to 1862, of the southern portion of the Malay Archipelago including Malaysia, S ...

'', who in 1858 was the first European to describe the bird. The generic name ''Semioptera'' is composed of ''semeion'' for a flag or

military standard In military organizations, the practice of carrying colours (or colors), standards, flags, or guidons, both to act as a rallying point for troops and to mark the location of the commander, is thought to have originated in Ancient Egypt som ...

and ''ptera'' for wings.

Subspecies and taxonomy

The standardwing bird-of-paradises' closest relatives are the superb birds-of-paradise (''Lophorina'' species), and actually evolved after the ''Drepanornis'' sicklebills, making them one of their other closest relatives. It has two subspecies: *''Semioptera wallacii halmaherae'' Salvadori, 1881 *''Semioptera wallacii wallacii'' Gray, 1859

Conservation status

A common species in its limited habitat range, the standardwing bird-of-paradise is evaluated as being of

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 of Threatened Species 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 biologi ...

due to its increasingly fragmented habitat. 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 ...

Description

Paradisaeidae - Semioptera wallacii wallacii

The standardwing bird-of-paradise is medium-sized, approximately 28 cm long, and olive brown. The male has a gloss violet-and-lilac coloured crown and emerald-green breast shield. Its most striking features are two pairs of long white plumes coming out from the bend of the wing that can be raised or lowered at the bird's will. The unadorned olive-brown female is smaller but has a longer tail than the male.

Behaviour and ecology

The males are

polygamous Crimes Polygamy (from Late Greek (') "state of marriage to many spouses") is the practice of marriage, marrying multiple spouses. When a man is married to more than one wife at the same time, sociologists call this polygyny. When a woman is ...

. They gather and perform a spectacular aerial display, "parachuting" with wings and its vivid green breast shield spread, and the wing "standards" fluttering above its back. Its diet consists mainly of insects,

arthropods Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a Segmentation (biology), segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and Arth ...

and fruits.

Distribution

The standardwing is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to Northern Maluku in eastern

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

and is the westernmost species of the true birds-of-paradise. It can be found on the islands of

Halmahera Halmahera, formerly known as Jilolo, Gilolo, or Jailolo, is the largest island in the Maluku Islands. It is part of the North Maluku province of Indonesia, and Sofifi, the capital of the province, is located on the west coast of the island. Hal ...

and

Bacan The Bacan Islands, formerly also known as the Bachans, Bachians, and Batchians, are a group of islands in the Moluccas in Indonesia. They are mountainous and forested, lying south of Ternate and southwest of Halmahera. The islands are administe ...

in lowland tropical rainforests and hills, and occasionally in woodland.

History

The first introduction of a bird-of-paradise to Europe was a result of

Ferdinand Magellan Ferdinand Magellan ( or ; pt, Fernão de Magalhães, ; es, link=no, Fernando de Magallanes, ; 4 February 1480 – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese explorer. He is best known for having planned and led the 1519 Spanish expedition to the East ...

's first

circumnavigation Circumnavigation is the complete navigation around an entire island, continent, or astronomical object, astronomical body (e.g. a planet or natural satellite, moon). This article focuses on the circumnavigation of Earth. The first recorded circ ...

of the earth. When the voyagers were at

Tidore Tidore ( id, Kota Tidore Kepulauan, lit. "City of Tidore Islands") is a city, island, and archipelago in the Maluku Islands of eastern Indonesia, west of the larger island of Halmahera. Part of North Maluku Province, the city includes the island ...

in December 1521, they were offered a gift of beautiful dead birds by the ruler of

to give to the

King of Spain , coatofarms = File:Coat_of_Arms_of_Spanish_Monarch.svg , coatofarms_article = Coat of arms of the King of Spain , image = Felipe_VI_in_2020_(cropped).jpg , incumbent = Felipe VI , incumbentsince = 19 Ju ...

. Based on the circumstances and description of the birds in

Antonio Pigafetta Antonio Pigafetta (; – c. 1531) was an Venetian scholar and explorer. He joined the expedition to the Spice Islands led by explorer Ferdinand Magellan under the flag of the emperor Charles V and after Magellan's death in the Philippine Islands, ...

's account of the voyage, they were likely standardwings. An alternate account by

Maximilianus Transylvanus Maximilian van Sevenbergen, Latinized in Maximilianus Transylvanus (Transilvanus, Transylvanianus), also Maximilianus of Transylvania and Maximilian (Maximiliaen) von Sevenborgen (between 1485 and 1490 – 1538, Brussels), was a courtier of ...

introduced the term ''manucodiata'' (a corruption of the

Malay Malay may refer to: Languages * Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore ** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century ** Indonesi ...

''manute-dewata''; "bird of the gods"), used for birds-of-paradise up to the 19th century. Following its original discovery in 1858, the standardwing bird-of-paradise was not seen again for nearly 60 years, and then only a handful of times until 1953. No further sightings were reported until the British ornithologist David Bishop rediscovered the species in 1983 and began making the first detailed observations of its behaviour. The standardwing bird-of-paradise was filmed for the first time in 1986 for the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

...