“Mama, I wanna be a toxic caterpillar,” says the little bird. “Okay,” mamma answers, “but first you gotta study your Batesian mimicry.” Meet the cinereous mourner (Laniocera hypopyrra), an ash-colored, Amazonian bird that looks rather hum-drum compared to many other birds found in the region (hence it’s name ‘cinereous’ which comes from the Latin meaning […]
Tag: alfred russell wallace
Volcano Birds in the Modern Age
From the time of Magellan, there has been a fascination with the birds that “laid their eggs in volcanoes.” Those birds, megapodes as a group, are in the news again as our Bronx Zoo has hatched young from a captive pair of maleo, the national bird of Sulawesi. The media coverage has stressed the “bizarre” […]