The Birds of Paradise Project | video | @GrrlScientist

A video introduction to the world's most visually stunning and remarkable birds that are hidden away upon the most rugged and inaccessible island on Earth.It's caturday, but today's video will make you think this day should be renamed to honour birds. This is because I am sharing a video that will inspire you and that may change you forever.As a child, I read the book The Malay Archipelago, by influential biogeographer and evolutionary biologist Alfred Russel Wallace, and immediately fell in love with the region, particularly with New Guinea and its amazing birds. One of my favourite bird families, the birds-of-paradise (Paradisaeidae), live only on New Guinea, a few nearby islands, and a small area of northern Australia. The birds-of-paradise form a family of songbirds comprised of 39 (or 41) species. These birds, whose ancestor was a member of the crow family, evolved a spectacular range of plumage colours, structures and patterns that the males display in complex courtship dances to woo females. Long known about by Western scientists, artists and explorers, these birds are poorly understood because few people have seen them in nature. They live in the most remote, rugged and inacessible areas on Earth, which makes them almost impossible to watch, to study, and to photograph. "Nature seems to have taken every precaution that these, her choicest treasures, may not lose value by being too easily obtained", as Wallace wrote in a paper published in the Proceedings of the Zoolog...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Birdwatching theguardian.com Blogposts Papua New Guinea Birds Books Animals Animal behaviour Zoology Science and nature Source Type: news