Tanysiptera nympha

General description: 

Both sexes blue-black crown and UpP, bright pink-red rump and UnP, tail purple-blue, elongated central feather 8 cm longer with broad white tips and often with narrow white inner margins at base, bill orange-red, iris dark brown, legs and feet pink-orange to red. Voice: 1-4 mournful whistles, becoming a trill, similar to that of T.danae.

Conservation status: 

Not Threatened.

Diagnostic description: 

Both sexes blue-black crown and UpP, bright pink-red rump and UnP, tail purple-blue, elongated central feather 8 cm longer with broad white tips and often with narrow white inner margins at base, bill orange-red, iris dark brown, legs and feet pink-orange to red. Voice: 1-4 mournful whistles, becoming a trill, similar to that of T.danae.

Behaviour: 

VOICE: 1-4 mournful whistles, becoming a trill, similar to that of T.danae.

Size: 

30-35 cm, including tail streamers, male 57 g, female 47-57 g

Phylogeny: 

Taxonomy:

    Tanysiptera Nympha G. R. Gray, 1840, New Guinea = Vogelkop Peninsula. Forms a superspecies with T. danae. Proposed race rothschildi (Huon Peninsula) now considered invalid. Monotypic. (source: Handbook of the Birds of World)
Distribution: 

Distribution:

    New Guinea, in two disjunct populations: in W in Vogelkop Peninsula (E to Geelvink and Etna Bays), and in NE from Adelbert Mts E to Huon Peninsula and S to upper R Watut and Bulolo Valley.
Habitat: 

Lowland feorest and ravines in forest hills, mainly below 900 m, occasionally up to 1500m, also tall secondary growth and riverine and mangrove forest.

Trophic strategy: 

Insect, larvae, and possibly earthworms. Perches solitarily on low horizontal branches in understorey.

Reproduction: 

Undated cluch of 2 eggs. No other information.

Scratchpads developed and conceived by (alphabetical): Ed Baker, Katherine Bouton Alice Heaton Dimitris Koureas, Laurence Livermore, Dave Roberts, Simon Rycroft, Ben Scott, Vince Smith