Metopidius
| Bronze-winged jacana | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Charadriiformes |
| Family: | Jacanidae |
| Genus: |
Metopidius Wagler, 1832 |
| Species: | M. indicus |
| Binomial name | |
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Metopidius indicus (Latham, 1790) |
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The bronze-winged jacana (Metopidius indicus) is a jacana. It is the only member of the genus Metopidius. The jacanas are a group of waders in the family Charadriidae, which are identifiable by their huge feet and claws which enable them to walk on floating vegetation in the shallow lakes that are their preferred habitat. They are found in south and east Asia within the tropical zone. For the origin and pronunciation of the name, see Jacana.
The bronze-winged jacana breeds in India and southeast Asia. It is sedentary apart from seasonal dispersion. It lays four black-marked brown eggs in a floating nest. The males, as in some other wader families like the phalaropes, take responsibility for incubation.
These are conspicuous and unmistakable birds. They are 29 cm (11 in) long, but the females are larger than the males. They are mainly black, although the inner wings are very dark brown and the tail is red. There is a striking white eyestripe. The yellow bill extends up as a red coot-like frontal shield, and the legs and very long toes are grey.
Young birds have brown upperparts. Their underparts are white, with a buff foreneck.
The bronze-winged jacana's feeds on insects and other invertebrates picked from the floating vegetation or the water's surface.
Call is a wheezy piping seek-seek-seek given mostly in alarm.
When forced they sometimes choose to hide by submerging themselves. The male may carry chicks between the wings and body.
Measurements (from Rasmussen and Anderton, 2005) Length 280–310 mm
Wing 150–197 mm (males 150-180mm, females 167–187 mm)
Bill from tip to top of frontal shield 34–46 mm (adults) 32-38 (juveniles)
Tarsus 61–76 mm
Tail 40–52 mm
Bronze-winged jacanas have a territorial, sex-role reversed system. They are polyandrous, and the females are larger and more brightly colored than their male counterparts. The females compete with each other for harems of males to incubate their clutches of eggs. Each female’s territory encompasses one to four males and their individual territories. The density of breeding territories can be limited by habitat availability and the territorial competition with other females and their harems. Although there is no clear evidence for a relationship between male territory size and the distribution of available resources, heavier males have been shown to defend their territories from other males. The overall distribution of territories appears to be small areas controlled by individual males, with the harems of females encompassing one or more of the male territories. Even though the territory size of females is positively correlated with the size of their harems, it does not seem to be related to the overall quality of the habitat. Females could attempt to maximize harem size by including as many male territories as they can, while males in larger harems would have to defend smaller territories. As a result, the degree of polyandry of the Bronze-winged jacana is dependent on the territory sizes of males and females.
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