Dicée hirondelle

Identification

The mistletoebird is small, 9–10 cm (3.5–3.9 in) long and 7.5–11 g (0.26–0.39 oz) weight. The male is glossy blue-black above, with a red chest and a slight red under-tail, and a black centre stripe running down its white belly. The female is dark grey above, with a white throat, light grey underparts, and just a touch of pinkish-red under the tail. The eyes, bill, and legs are black; the bill is just over a centimetre long, slender, slightly down-curved and sharply pointed. Immature birds are similar to the female, but have an orange-pink bill instead of black. There is a variance in size and colour across their distribution. The adult mistletoebird is smaller in the north of its distribution and females in the north have lighter coloured underparts compared to darker ones in the south.<p>The mistletoebird has long pointed wings and a short square tail with a slight notch at the tip. They usually occur singularly or in twos but occasionally in small family groups or flocks and very occasionally in mixed-species flocks when food is in abundance. Their flight is swift and they are usually seen flying above or high in the tree canopy on distinctively pointed wings. Their posture is usually upright when perched but adopt a more horizontal, swaying posture when alarmed. They have a variety of vocalizations but their most familiar is a short, sharp, high-pitched tzew or dzee whistled mainly on the wing. Songs while perched include a whistled wissweet wissweet uttered repeatedly. The male mistletoe bird can be mistaken for a scarlet robin (Petroica boodang) or flame robin (Petroica phoenicea), but it has no spot on the forehead and has a black streak on the white belly. Due to the combination of size, shape, behaviour, and plumage the mistletoebird is unlikely to be mistaken for any other Australian passerine; however, the pardalote and thornbill are the closest in size and shape.

Taxonomie

The mistletoebird is one of 54 species of the flowerpecker family Dicaeidae. The flowerpeckers are considered to be nearest in avian evolutionary relationship to the sunbird family Nectariniidae. Both the flowerpeckers and sunbirds are thought to be early offshoots of the early passeroid radiation that occurred 20-30 million years ago. The sunbirds are found mainly in Africa and Asia and the flowerpeckers throughout Asia. The mistletoebird is a geologically recent arrival into Australia from South-East Asia. It is thought to have started colonizing Australia from about two million years ago.<p>The mistletoebird is a mistletoe-feeding specialist and mistletoe-feeding specialists have evolved independently in eight of the world's avian families. This extreme dietary specialization has evolved in non-passerine species, as well as sub-oscine and oscine passerines. Early scientific research had the mistletoe and mistletoebird mutually co-evolving with a high dependence on each other through their evolutionary development. As the mistletoe has been in Australia for a long time and mistletoebirds for a relatively short time, the mistletoe seed was distributed originally by non-specialized frugivore birds like the honeyeater. Even though the mistletoebird has evolved into a very efficient local distributor of mistletoe seeds, the mistletoebird needs the mistletoe but the mistletoe does not need the mistletoebird.<p>Molecular-based scientific methods have been used recently to evaluate generic taxonomy within the flowerpecker family. The flowerpecker genetic subdivision is based on a single morphological character_)—the length of the outermost primary wing feather. Most flowerpeckers are sexually dichromatic, have stouter bills than sunbirds and display a broad variety of tongue structure. Genetic analysis of mitochondrial DNA of 70% of flowerpecker species showed that the mistletoebird and the red-capped flowerpecker (D. geelvinkianum) to be each other's closest relative.<p>The specific epithet hirundinaceum derives from the name of the swallow (Hirundo) and refers to its long and pointed swallow-like wings.<p>There are three recognised subspecies, which differ in geographical location and plumage details, primarily of the males:<p>The pink-breasted flowerpecker (Dicaeum keiense) was formerly considered as a subspecies.

Nom scientifique

Dicaeum hirundinaceum

Autorité

(Shaw, 1792)

Ordre

Passériformes

Famille

Dicaeidae

Genre

Dicaeum

Répartition et habitat

Migration

Espèce sédentaire

Comportement

Mode de migration: Espèce sédentaire.

Conservation

Tendance de la population: stable.

Tendance de la population

stable