The yellow-breasted flowerpecker (''Prionochilus maculatus'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

in the family

Dicaeidae The flowerpeckers are a family, Dicaeidae, of passerine birds. The family comprises two genera, ''Prionochilus'' and ''Dicaeum'', with 50 species in total. The family has sometimes been included in an enlarged sunbird family Nectariniidae. The b ...

. It is found in

Brunei Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi alphabet, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely sur ...

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 ...

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

, and

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

. Its natural

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

s are

subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests (TSMF), also known as tropical moist forest, is a subtropical and tropical forest habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Description TSMF is generally found in large, discont ...

and subtropical or tropical moist

montane forest 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 ...

Taxonomy

The scientific name of the yellow-breasted flowerpecker is ''Prionochilus maculatus''. These birds are members of the

family. The yellow-breasted flowerpecker was assessed and classified in 1836 by

Coenraad Jacob Temminck Coenraad Jacob Temminck (; 31 March 1778 – 30 January 1858) was a Dutch people, Dutch Aristocracy (class), aristocrat, Zoology, zoologist and museum director. Biography Coenraad Jacob Temminck was born on 31 March 1778 in Amsterdam in the Dut ...

, a Dutch zoologist and museum director, and Jules Meiffren-Laugier de Chartrouse, a French scientist and politician.

Subspecies

There are 4 subspecies: ''Prionochilus maculatus maculatus'' (Temminck, 1836) ''Prionochilus maculatus septentrionalis'' (Robinson & Kloss, 1921) ''Prionochilus maculatus oblitus'' (Mayr, 1938) ''Prionochilus maculatus natunensis'' (Chasen, 1935)

Description

The yellow-breasted flowerpecker has an olive green back, a bright neon orange patch on the top of its head, and a yellow underbelly with black streaks located on the sides. The iris is red, and the throat contains brushes of white. The legs are gray and

anisodactyl In biology, dactyly is the arrangement of digits (fingers and toes) on the hands, feet, or sometimes wings of a tetrapod animal. It comes from the Greek word δακτυλος (''dáktylos'') = "finger". Sometimes the ending "-dactylia" is use ...

. Both males and females of this species share a similar look with the female having slight differences in coloration. The male yellow-breasted flowerpecker ranges from 7.5 to 11.8 inches, while the female yellow-breasted flowerpecker ranges from 7.8 to 7.9 inches. The chirps of this bird are high pitched. The average lifespan of this bird’s life is 2.4 years.

Habitat and Distribution

The yellow-breasted flowerpecker is found in the subtropical forest habitat. The yellow-breasted flowerpecker forages in the middle and upper levels of lowland and foothill forest and forest edge. This species presence has a broad range that expands across southern Asia. This bird is native to

Brunei Darussalam Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely surrounded by the ...

, and

. This species is now considered extinct in Singapore. The yellow-breasted flowerpecker is not a migrant bird and maintains residence in the terrestrial system.

Ecology

Diet

The diet of the yellow-breasted flowerpecker contains mainly fruit, nectar, and pollen. Their diet includes: Benjamin fig; ''Ficus villosa''; ''Melastoma malabathricum''; Straits rhododendron fruit; and Hairy Clidemia.

Reproduction

The breeding of the yellow-breasted flowerpecker depends on the region and usually occurs in the summertime. The nascent birds are nurtured by their parents. The nest is made from fern

rhizomes In botany and dendrology, a rhizome (; , ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from axillary buds and grow hori ...

and tree cotton, reinforced by spider webs. The nest contains a triangular-shaped entrance hole pointing upwards and is surrounded by overhanging leaves. The yellow-breasted flowerpecker has a clutch of two eggs. The eggs are white and covered with brown spots and blotches around the end.

Conservation Status

The current population trend for the yellow-breasted flowerpecker is stable and is listed as a

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. The yellow-breasted flowerpecker was last assessed by the IUCN on 01 October 2016. There are no restrictions or conservation efforts put in place to protect this bird. The yellow-breasted flowerpecker is considered near threatened in the

Malay Peninsula The Malay Peninsula (Malay: ''Semenanjung Tanah Melayu'') is a peninsula in Mainland Southeast Asia. The landmass runs approximately north–south, and at its terminus, it is the southernmost point of the Asian continental mainland. The area ...

due to potential habitat loss in the future.

References

yellow-breasted flowerpecker Birds of Malesia yellow-breasted flowerpecker Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Dicaeidae-stub