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Species
Paradisaea raggiana Sclater, PL, 1873
Nomenclature
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Family: ParadisaeidaeGenus: Paradisaea
Media
SUMMARY
Male nominate race has lores, forehead, ear-coverts, malar area, chin and throat iridescent yellowish emerald-green, nostril covered by feathers; rest of head, including nape and hindneck, pale orangy yellow, glossed iridescent silver, yellow extending as narrow collar across lower throat and also from hindneck onto mantle (there overlying dark brown, producing apparent mid-brown colour): remaining upper-parts, including upperwing and tail, dark brown, washed maroon on back, rump and uppertail-coverts, with discrete pale orangy-yellow wingbar on lesser coverts and variable orangy-yellow wash on outer edges of greater coverts; central pair of rectrices grossly elongated, reduced to finely tapering blackish wires and lacking vanes except at bases; upper breast blackish-brown with iridescence of dark coppery-bronze, grading to medium brown on belly and to pinkish mid-brown on thighs, vent and undertail-coverts, the last softly filamental and elongated to half tail length; grossly elongated and tapering filamental flank plumes crimson to orange-crimson with buffish-white tips on lower surface and rusty-brown on upper surface; iris yellow; bill pale chalky bluish-grey, mouth pinkish-flesh; legs pale, dull fleshy brown. Female is smaller than male, notably in wing length and weight, and with central rectrices shorter, narrower and more pointed than rest; face, ear-coverts, chin and throat dark brown, crown, rear and side of neck and narrow foreneck-collar dark buff-yellow, collar quickly grading to pinkish light-brown on underpays, which paler on central belly. Juvenile is entirely dark brownish, but by four months of age like adult female; immature male as adult female; subadult male variable, like adult female with few feathers of adult male plumage intruding, initially about head, to like adult male with few feathers of female-like plumage remaining; male gains progressively longer central pair of rectrices; in captivity, first traces of adult male plumage acquired at c. 5 years, full plumage after at least a further year or two, two nestlings took three years to acquire completely yellow iris. Race salvadorii is like nominate, but brown mantle of both sexes lacking yellow, and scarlet of male flank plumes paler and plumes shorter; intermedia is similar to previous, but both sexes with yellow mantle-back and yellow streaking down to uppertail-coverts; augustaevictoriae is like last, but flank plumes apricot-orange, abdomen paler, and yellow throat-collar narrow, female much paler above and below than nominate female, with more buff-yellow on back, and yellowish collar on foreneck reduced or absent.