Ornithologists have discovered a new genus and species of tanager on the lower slopes of the Andes in southeastern Peru and western Bolivia. Tanagers are a large family, Thraupidae, of more than 370 songbird species restricted almost entirely to the American tropics. It is the second largest family of birds and represents about 4% of […]
Tag: louisiana state university
Locally extinct birds in the Amazon slowly flock back to forests when trees regrow
Between 1992 and 2011, a team led by Philip Stouffer of Louisiana State University tracked the movements of birds through fragmented rainforest in the Brazilian Amazon. Using soft nylon stretches called mist nets, they snagged nearly 4,000 birds at the margins between old growth forests and tracts of between old growth rainforest and forest recovering […]
Why do ‘single’ birds dance?
“Mesmerising and with a little bit of mystery about it.” That is how aviculturist Amy King describes the graceful leaping, bowing, running, spinning and grass-tossing of dancing cranes. This unique and spectacular behaviour has been imitated in various human cultures since the Stone Age and the purpose of such elaborate displays is widely understood to […]