Touraco à huppe violette

Gallirex porphyreolophus

Un oiseau irisé et massif vêtu de violet profond, bleu, vert et olive lavé de rose. Il grimpe acrobatiquement à travers les bois riverains et les fourrés de savane. En vol, il jaillit de la canopée avec des panneaux rouge profond distinctifs dans les ailes. Il produit un « khoh-khoh-khoh-khoh…. » croassant distinctif qui devient progressivement plus fort avant de s'arrêter brusquement. Le Touraco de Ross, similaire, diffère du Touraco violet par sa teinte globalement plus foncée et sa crête rouge et sa face jaune.

Identification

This bird has a purple coloured crest above a green head, a red ring around their eyes, and a black bill. The neck and chest are green and brown. The rest of the body is purple, with red flight feathers.<p>Purple-crested turacos are considered to be large frugivores that are known to carry cycad seeds from various plant species long distances from feeding to nesting sites. After fruit consumption, they regurgitate the seeds intact where they can germinate nearby. G. porphyreolophus primarily consumes fruits whole like many other large frugivores which are suggested to be necessary for effective ecosystem functioning. Among similar turacos, the purple-crested turaco have faster minimum transit times when consuming smaller seed diets than larger seed diets, and G. porphyreolophus has been shown to have significantly faster pulp (seedless fruit masses) transit time than another closely related Turaco when fed only the pulp of larger-seeding fruits than smaller-seeding fruits.<p>Purple-crested turacos are primarily frugivorous and have been shown to disperse seeds that germinate comparably to that of manually de-pulped seeds. Turacos are important for seed dispersal and germination, but the purple-crested turaco's digestion of invasive plants still allows for high rates of germination and low seed retention. On the other hand, the invasive species Psittacula krameri (rose-ringed parakeet) has been shown to contain longer seed retention and lower rates of alien-plant germination.

Taxonomie

Nom scientifique
Gallirex porphyreolophus
Autorité
(Vigors, 1831)
Ordre
Musophagiformes
Famille
Musophagidae
Genre
Gallirex

Répartition et habitat

They live in moist woodland and evergreen forests. They eat mainly fruit. It is found in Burundi, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa, Eswatini, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Their southernmost occurrence is at the Mtamvuna River on the KwaZulu-Natal-Eastern Cape border.

Migration
Resident species

Conservation

Tendance de la population
declining

Photos

Distribution

Chants d'Oiseaux

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