Tooth-billed bowerbird

Tooth-billed bowerbird
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Ptilonorhynchidae
Genus: Scenopoeetes
Coues, 1891
Species:
S. dentirostris
Binomial name
Scenopoeetes dentirostris
(Ramsay, 1876)

The tooth-billed bowerbird (Scenopoeetes dentirostris), also known as the stagemaker bowerbird or tooth-billed catbird, is a medium-sized (approximately 27 centimetres (11 in) long) bowerbird. It is a stocky olive-brown bird with brown-streaked buffish white underparts, grey feet, a brown iris and a distinctive serrated bill.[2][3][4] Both sexes are similar, but the female is slightly smaller than the male. It is the only member of the genus Scenopoeetes.

The display-court

The tooth-billed bowerbird is endemic to the mountain forests of northeast Queensland, Australia.[5] Its diet consists mainly of fruits and young leaves of forest trees.

The male is polygamous and builds a display-court or "stage-type bower" (hence the alternate name stagemaker), decorated with fresh green leaves laid with their pale undersides facing up.[6] The leaves are collected by the male by chewing through the leaf stalk and old leaves are removed from the display-court. The display-court consists of a cleared area containing at least one tree trunk used by the male for perching. Upon the approach of a female the male drops to the ground and displays.

A common species in its limited habitat and range, the tooth-billed bowerbird is evaluated as near threatened on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.[1]

Mimicking spangled drongo, Lake Barrine, North Queensland, Australia
  1. ^ a b BirdLife International (2022). "Scenopoeetes dentirostris". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2022: e.T22703627A211059844. Retrieved 27 July 2022.
  2. ^ "Scenopoeetes dentirostris". Australian Antarctic Data Centre. Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Community. Retrieved 28 June 2012.
  3. ^ Marshall, Jock (1954). Bower-birds, their displays and breeding cycles : a preliminary statement. Clarendon Press. p. 154.
  4. ^ Hutchinson, G. Evelyn (1970). The itinerant ivory tower; scientific and literary essays. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press. pp. 56–59. ISBN 083691712X.
  5. ^ "Tooth-billed Bowerbird (Scenopoeetes dentirostris)". BirdLife International. Retrieved 28 June 2012.
  6. ^ Rowland, Peter (2008). Bowerbirds. Collingwood, Vic.: CSIRO Pub. p. 22. ISBN 9780643094208.