Mistletoebird
| Mistletoebird | |
|---|---|
.jpg) |
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| Male | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Passeriformes |
| Family: | Dicaeidae |
| Genus: | Dicaeum |
| Species: | D. hirundinaceum |
| Binomial name | |
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Dicaeum hirundinaceum (Shaw, 1792) |
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| Distribution map of Dicaeum hirundinaceum hirundinaceum in red, (top-centre:) D. h. keiense in green, D. h. ignicolle in purple, and D. h. fulgidum in orange. | |
The mistletoebird (Dicaeum hirundinaceum), also known as the mistletoe flowerpecker, is a species of flowerpecker native to most of Australia (though absent from Tasmania and the driest desert areas) and also to the eastern Maluku Islands of Indonesia in the Arafura Sea between Australia and New Guinea. The mistletoebird eats mainly the berries of the parasitic mistletoe and has adapted its digestive system to help spread the mistletoe seeds.
The mistletoebird is one of 44 species of flowerpeckers (Family: Dicaeidae). The flowerpeckers are considered to be nearest in avian evolutionary relationship to the sunbirds (Family: Nectriniidae). 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.
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 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.
Molecular-based scientific methods have been used recently to evaluate generic taxonomy within the flowerpeckers family. The flowerpicker genetic subdivision is based on a single morphological character- the length of the outermost primary wing feather. Most flowerpickers 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 the mistletoebird and red-capped flowerpecker (D. geelvinkianum) to be each other's closest relative.
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Wikipedia