Paradisaea rudolphi Finsch & Meyer, AB, 1885

Male nominate race has head, neck and mantle glossy jet-black with iridescent bronzed-green sheen, rear crown and nape suffused with dark carmine-red; crescents of silver-white feathers forming broken eyering; back and rump blackish with iridescent blue-green (upper back), blue and indigo-blue sheens, uppertail-coverts dark cobalt-blue; upperwing variably blue on coverts and inner wing to purplish-blue on tertials, leading edges darker, flight-feathers matt blackish with blue outer edges on all except outer three primaries; uppertail purple-blue, central feather pair grossly elongated into "ribbons" of narrow matt bluish-black webs, paler spatulate tips showing iridescent blue; upper breast matt-blackish with slightest of dark blue iridescence, more pronounced sheen on lower breast, to jet-black belly and dark brownish-black thighs and undertail-coverts: grossly elongated fine, sparse filamental flank plumes basally dark purple-blue with violet sheen, becoming blue centrally and variably purplish-blue to mauve distally; upper surface of flank plumes rusty amber, two areas of inner flank plumes forming a black and a dark crimson linear patch on each side of belly, these meeting during display to form continuous bicoloured line; iris dark brown; bill palest chalky bluish-white, almost white, mouth greenish-yellow; legs purplish-grey. Female is smaller than male, lacks elongated feathers; head and upperparts similar to male, but black areas duller, more dark brownish-black, with only faintest iridescence and no carmine or magenta on head; chestnut-brown below, grading from blackish on throat to dark cinnamon on underparts, with slight matt blackish barring but less so on central belly (and absent in some populations); younger female has more extensive, blacker ventral barring and dark bill. Juvenile is like adult female, but wings darker, bill dark greyish, abdomen whitish, and white feathers around eyes fully developed; immature male like adult female; subadult male like adult female but with few feathers of adult male plumage intruding, grading to like adult male but with few feathers of female-like plumage remaining; with age, male acquires shorter outer rectrices while simultaneously gaining progressively longer and narrower central pair. Race margaritae is like nominate, but female underparts uniformly narrowly barred blackish, and tail (excluding central feather pair) and tarsus on average shorter.