Card #038 · Birds
Superb bird-of-paradise
Lophorina superba
Common LC · Least Concern
Field notes
- Classification
- Order Passeriformes · Family Paradisaeidae
- Range
- New Guinea
- Size
- Males ~26 cm (10 in)
- Weight
- To ~105 g (3.7 oz)
- Lifespan
- ~5–8 yrs (wild)
- Diet
- Omnivore
Most Notable
Its velvet cape feathers absorb up to 99.95% of light, among the darkest blacks known in nature, so the blue breast shield seems to glow against a void.
In courtship the male snaps his black cape and iridescent blue-green breast shield into a symmetric oval, forming a bright "face" that seems to smile, then glides side to side for the watching female.
This Vogelkop bird was recognized as distinct in 2017: its display forms a smoother, more symmetric crescent and its dance is a gliding side step, unlike the bouncing, oval display of its mainland relatives.
The electric blue-green shield is structural color, produced by the nanostructure of the feathers scattering light rather than by any pigment.
Females look like an entirely different bird: cryptic reddish-brown above and barred below, the drab counterweight to the male's extreme ornament.
Range: Montane forests of the Vogelkop (Bird's Head) Peninsula, far northwest New Guinea